The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being..

She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?’

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, ‘Of course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze..

‘Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with me..

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she revelled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ‘We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.’

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humour every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody! Can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets..’

She concluded her speech by courageously singing ‘The Rose.’

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get. We make a Life by what we give.

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Pass this message on…. You will receive a miracle tomorrow ( if you don’t think so….look out your window when you wake in the morning and think about it)

~  Unknown Author

This was written by my friend, Brian Martin.  You can click here to read the post on his website.

Self doubt and confidence are major issues in people’s lives.

Self doubt is set up through negative thinking. One of the ways that I have learned to eliminate negative thoughts for my mind and trained my mind to run in a way that works for me, is to focus on my blessings each morning before I get out of bed.  Please try this. Write them down.  Do not focus on what you want, or have not got, just focus on your blessings.

In the course of my study and observation, it would appear that if a person is curious in asking questions, they are quite often a self-motivated learner.  My 90-year-old going on 20-year-old Japanese mother is unbelievably curious.  For all of her amazing wisdom of life (she worked until she was 88 years old), she is always learning.

In many of our trainings, we use an alternative model which we call ‘The Success Model’. There is also the traditional model, and one of the points made in the traditional success model is Know the Answer. This usually means that you get recognition from either your boss, your teacher, or your parents, and you get labeled ’smart’, ‘clever’, ‘whizz kid’, and often singled out for further opportunities.  In the alternative model, we have a box that says Know the Question.

What we’ve found is that it usually opens people up to possibility thinking. For example: ‘What do I want my life to look like in three years time?’ ‘How can I solve this challenge?’  ‘How can I be successful?’ It seems to alert the brain to resources both internal and external which were not being noticed before that question was asked.

If you practice this regularly, you will find that you get answers to what you want to know in many cases.  The point is to know the question that will open up possibilities for your life.

This does require practice, it is not instant gratification.

Written By: Brian Martin

Originally Posted on: www.AskBrianMartin.com

This video is a MUST see. It is just over 2 1/2 minutes long and will BLOW YOU AWAY.

If you didn’t catch my last blog post on Four Years. Go. – Click Here to read it now.  You can also visit FourYearsGo.Org for more information.

Coaching is a “Get Real” partnership with my client.  It is a creative and thought-provoking partnership that inspires my clients to live up to their full personal and professional potential.

As a Coaches for over 30 years, mastering the art of accelerated learning, I generously listen, observe, and then customize my proven approach to your needs. I provide you the support you need to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that you already have, and help you discover new solutions and strategies to help you remove blocks that stand in the way of your greatest success.

The relationship helps you to produce satisfaction and confidence, improve your performance, get results, and enhancing the quality of your life. You can accomplish unbelievable growth in a wide range of areas including career, health, wealth, sexuality, relationships, family, and spirituality.

What exactly do I coach?
You are assisted to take bold action on:

• Identifying who you really are, discovering your dreams and goals, and achieving them
• Developing self-observation skills so you can make new choices that are unavailable otherwise
• Reframing beliefs and behaviors so they are consistent with your goals and who you really are

I become your personal mentor using my highly successful 4 Ps of Success –Purpose, Principles, Practices, and Persistence! You will learn refined distinctions based on acclaimed personal growth concepts and put them into action immediately. Through regular sessions with me as your personal tutor, you get significant and accelerated results you will be proud of. So get started Now with Coaching or Mentoring.

by Jack Canfield

Understanding the relationship among consciousness, action, and prosperity is crucial to your success.

In my seminars I sometimes stand in front of the room and hold up a $100 bill, state that I’m wiling to give it away, and ask if anyone would like to have it.

Usually lots of people raise their hand – and do nothing else. I keep waiving the dollar bill until someone finally jumps out of his or her chair, walks or runs all the way up to the stage and reaches up to take the bill.

There are two lessons here. One is that money goes to the person who takes the necessary action. The other is that a certain state of consciousness makes it possible to take action – or to avoid it.

When I ask people what kept them from walking up to the front of the room to claim the money, I always get the same answers: they felt shy. They worried about what other people would think. They thought it was a trick. Those answers come from a consciousness dominated by fear, scarcity, and cynicism.

The same forces can operate in our daily lives. In each moment we either feed those forces – or replace them with something better. Following are some essential ways to expand your prosperity consciousness and claim the wealth you deserve.

Monitor Your Conversations

We swim in a sea of conversation. Every time you attend a meeting, make a phone call, or send an email, you start up a conversation. Whenever you listen to an audio recording or pick up a book, you start a conversation with an author. And whenever you write in your journal or just a take a few minutes to sit and think, you start a conversation with yourself.

Consider the combined effect of those conversations. My friend Jim Rohn liked to say that we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. The quality of our conversations creates the quality of our lives.

I just came back from the Transformational Leadership Council meeting in Puerto Rico, and it was an awesome learning and life altering event for me. I wish I could tell you everything but it would take pages. So I will let you in on one critically important thing presented by Lynne Twist that touched me and it will be with me forever – the awakening to the real importance of the work of transformation my peers and me, and you, have been up to all these years and will be into the future.  It is a matter of the extinction or extension of the human species and earth as we know it.  The time is NOW!  Learn and get involved at www.FourYearsgo.org.

“Fouryears.Go.” Is a global campaign to galvanize an “urgency coalition” of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals to work in concert for a better world. It is a campaign to create a movement that brings forth a world surge of energy, enthusiasm and action to launch humanity on a sustainable, just and fulfilling trajectory by February 14, 2014.

“Four years” because this is the time period humanity can not afford to go beyond without facing an unacceptable risk of irreversible negative systemic change and because this next four years presents a unique opportunity in history where the anchor points and ideologies of the old world have come loose and are dying and a new common ground is ripe to be born.  Ands “Go” because we must start now.  There is time to act but no time to waste.

“Fouryears.Go” is a campaign initially being created and shepherded by a coalition of organizations and individuals led by Wieden & Kennedy (the largest independent advertising agency in the world and creators of Nike’s “Just do it” swoosh and Lance Armstrong’s “Live Strong” yellow bracelet campaign), The Pachamama Alliance, P:5Y (a global movement to create a peaceful world), and The 2020 Fund.

The basic premises of the campaign are that:

1. Our planet is fast approaching some ecological tipping points that if passed, could lead to irreversible downward spiral that would alter life as we know it for all future generations.
2. We already possess all the technology and all the well thought out solutions required to resolve the ecological, social and economic crises confronting us.  (As Al Gore points out in his new book “Our Choice” his research into solutions around the globe has convinced him that we have the tools to solve three climate crises and we only face one).
3. In resolving these crises lies the possibility of an evolutionary leap that could free humanity from the curses of alienation and injustice and provide a grounded new vision for our future.
4. All that is missing is a universal sense of urgency and a collective will to act.

The purpose of the Fouryears.Go campaign is to provide that collective will.  Fouryears.Go will be a special kind of climate change campaign, a campaign to change the climate of people’s thinking, a campaign to cause a positive tipping point in unleashing our collective will, and to do it soon, to do it in the next four years.

And out of that unleashing of collective will, a surge of energy and enthusiasm and activism will infuse a wide array of global projects and initiatives such that by February 14, 2014 the predictable future for humanity, the most likely case scenario that any professional scenario planning organization would forecast, will be one of environmental sustainability, spiritual fulfillment, and social justice.

_{Projected overall outcomes:}

Hundreds of millions of people (15% of humanity) will have listed in the campaign.  Over a million organizations (a combination of NGOs, business entities, governments or governmental entities, and academic research think-tanks) will have joined the campaign.  Tens of millions of volunteers and hundreds of millions of dollars of funding will have been generated in support of projects and initiatives around the globe aligned with the Fouryears.Go objectives.

_{How the campaign will work:}

Using the internet and social media networks and creative content from Wieden & Kennedy initially (but later from additional media specialists who enroll in the campaign), individuals and organizations will be attracted to Fouryears.Go website where they will experience a compelling enrollment message and be invited to become a part of the campaign.  The website will be designed to appeal broadly irrespective of age, gender or particular areas of interest or work (environment, war, food crisis, climate, gender, oceans, etc.)

For more details and updates, sign up NOW at www.FourYearsGo.org and tell everyone!

_{What I learned from 2009}

The year 2009 was exciting and rewarding, even though somewhat challenging. I learned a lot – so much in fact, it is very hard to put it all in a few lines.  So I will just give a few points which I will carry over in 2010.  Here are a few ideas, listed as “Do’s” and “Don’t” for you to ponder and implement as well.

Do’s

1. Invest in yourself. Take personal development courses to further your growth. It may be the most valuable asset you build.  It would be crazy not to do this, given that you generate your own future.
2. Have faith, be patient, be strong, keep focused, be ready. “Between your dream and its fulfillment you’ll be tested”.
3. Give what’s wanted and requested rather than giving your pet issue or what you think someone needs. This is the secret to practically all successful business endeavors.
4. See and speak the positive. With the space you have around you, fill it with the things you want rather than the things you don’t want
5. Make more money than you spend. You never know when you will need to reconcile your affairs, and you want to be ahead rather than behind in the game.

Don’ts

1. Don’t listen to bullshit or buy it. Trust your instincts. Question all those who call themselves masters.  Do their professional peers agree they are.
2. Don’t let people coach you if they don’t have experience and success in that area. If you want to play tennis, get a tennis pro with the most experience in tennis, not a cyclist.
3. Don’t give up just because you are challenged or because something is tough. Don’t be cynical; give life a chance again and again.
4. Don’t be too reasonable about your dreams. Being too reasonable can lead to mediocrity.
5. Welcome life’s many opportunities, but say YES and commit to only those you are willing to complete. It’s OK to say NO. Making too many commitments is to be committed to none.  Incompletes lead to unfinished business and baggage you don’t need.

More power to you in the year 2010, ahead.  And remember your point of power is in the here and now.  For more details on living positively, powerfully, and heroically click here to order The ANSWER To Absolutely Everything DVD and you’ll get several  FREE CDs to choose from. And don’t forget to check out my newest CD: The Game of Life and How To Win It.  Blessings to you, and share this blog memo with friends and family.

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”

^{~ G. K. Chesterton}

“There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in the summer and the youngest in the fall.

When they had all gone and returned, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent and twisted. The second son said it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said that it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful it as the most graceful things he’d ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment. They began to argue and fight amongst themselves over who was right and who was wrong.

Then the man explained to his sons that none of them were wrong, yet none were right either because they had each only seen one season of the tree’s life. He told them you cannot judge a tree or a person by only one season. That the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy and love that comes from that life can only be measured when all the seasons are up.”

How can any of us judge another when we only see one aspect of that person? When we only see some of what is there but not all of it? How can we judge our own selves as a success or failure when all the seasons have not yet played themselves out in our lives?

If we give up when it’s winter, we will miss the promise of spring, the beauty of summer and the fulfillment of fall.

“Don’t ever let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don’t judge life by one difficult season. We must persevere through the difficult patches for better times are sure to come.

Live simply
Love generously
Care deeply
Speak kindly”

Trust that everything that enters your life is there to support you to evolve spiritually.

“Happiness keeps you sweet
Trials keep you strong
Sorrows keep you human
Failures keep you humble
Success keeps you growing”

As you embark on a New Year, may you create a new soul with the lessons you have learned and a hope for dreams yet to be fulfilled. And may it be a happy one.

Portions of this article were written by an unknown author.

Posted by my friend,  Martha Borst

_{by Terry Tillman}

2010!!! Wow! We’ve already heading into the first week of another new year. Wasn’t it only last year that we were reading about all the fear-based Y2K concerns forecasting the impending year 2000 “Millennium bug”? Was that a decade ago?

When Greg asked me to post a little article here my knee-jerk reaction was, “I’m too busy, I don’t have time…” And that’s the reason why I agreed to write this. I tell others to do the thing you don’t want to do if you want to be free, and grow and learn. Move into the resistance, rather than away back to the safe, familiar, comfortable habitual behaviors. So, let’s see what shows up here…

The transition from December to January, one year to the next, the old to the new is a time when many of us review and resolve. With good intentions we acknowledge where we fell short in the past and voice good intentions, goals and objectives for the coming 12 months.

Sometime during the first week of each year my wife and I sit down together, away from any distractions and go through what’s become an annual “ritual”-we go through a process to complete the year just finished and voice intentions for the coming 12 months (There’s nothing sacred about 12 months. That’s an arbitrary time period, so we could be talking about 6 months, or two years).

This is an important time of the year, because I know that where I look is where I go. I create my reality by what I focus upon. And I’m now committing a major part of my next focus. I’m beginning an action that will determine my experience and results for the next period.

COMPLETION, AGREEMENTS & SAYING “NO”
Our first step is to acknowledge what we’re grateful for. We write this down. It’s usually four or five pages for each of us. I’ve made it a habit to look at what I have, do or am to be grateful for, daily. The end of the year list is a summary, and claiming, a receiving and acknowledging.

With an attitude of gratitude I’m automatically abundant. I have the experience of abundance and I will never need to endure the loss of any one thing (You might want to read that again).

Every agreement or promise I make and every action I’ve started that is not complete requires a little piece of my consciousness and energy, usually unconsciously. So a next step in our process is to reclaim some of that energy. We list incompletions and decide what we intend to do to complete them. We eliminate or re-chose and re-commit. Often it’s as simple as declaring completion–Just saying “It’s done”, or “I’m not going to do that .”

Much of the stress experienced in business and personal lives is the result of over committing-agreeing to do more than can be done well, thoroughly, enjoyably and in a balanced manner in the time allotted. I’ve found that if I want to have less stress, I need to learn when to say “no”. Be more selective in my choices and agreements.

If I want movement and change, if I want to start something new, I need to stop something. That means saying, “Yes” to one activity is saying “No” to others.

For example, last week I looked around my office and home and noticed that I had three books and four magazines open. I have been in the process of reading them-a couple of them I started several months, or more, ago. Those are incompletions, and broken agreements with myself (I’ll get to that in a minute). I know that I pay a big price for broken agreements, and lose energy and focus when my environment is filled with incompletes.

So what can I do? I closed two of the books and put them back on the bookshelf. I tossed a couple of the magazines in the trash, and I closed the others. Done. Complete! Energy reclaimed.  Later I can choose again to read them. If I want. For now I’m choosing something else. I’m always amazed at how much better I feel after simple acts such as those. I begin to feel more in charge, more of the author(ity) in my life.

Some completions may take a little more effort and time. Some I can renegotiate (with myself, or someone else if they are involved). Basically I’m reviewing my past choices and bringing them into the present and making a new choice. Sometimes that may be the same one as in the past; sometimes it’s altogether new. After all, in some ways I’m hopefully a different person, with different information at this moment than when I originally made the choice. What would I chose now?

When I reviewed my incompletions last week I found very few projects and activities that I wanted to cancel, or say no to. That’s good news to me. That means I’m on course and have kept pretty current and present.

I did however clarify or remember what my agreements and commitments are. That’s been very helpful to me already. A couple days ago the managing director of a company I’m an advisor to and investor in asked me to get more involved in a particular operational challenge the company was having. That would have entailed more work and time commitment. With the recall of what I originally agreed to fresh in my mind, and remembering what I’m best at and enjoy, it was easy to say “no”, thank you. In the past I might have been afraid I’d upset the client, spark disapproval, be judged, or even lose the contract (and money). However, I’ve learned that the price I pay for not being true to myself, and making my choices from the inside out, is even greater.

Often in seminars I will ask the group, “Who would like greater self-esteem?  More confidence? Greater self-trust? Better relationships? More energy? Consistently, in every country (94 so far) and every seminar, around 95% of the hands are raised.  And then we launch into a two-hour lecturette and process.

We probably don’t have the space for all that here, so I’ll just give the bottom line–THE KEY to experiencing all of these rewards is basically, KEEP YOUR AGREEMENTS!  Do what you say you are going to do.

Or, alternatively, if you are experiencing low self-esteem, lack of trust, low confidence, deteriorating relationships, low energy… look to your agreements. Chances are you’re overcommiting and/or not keeping them.

And, the reason we’re looking at this now, at the beginning of 2010, is that this is the time of the year when people make resolutions–This year I’m going to lose weight, start an exercise program, play and laugh more, risk more, travel to…, relax and pause more (work hard, rest often), take that speed reading class, spend more time with my children, write a book, eat healthier food, learn a new language… These are all agreements with our selves. And if we don’t keep them, we automatically suffer the consequences called low self-esteem, lack of trust, low confidence, deteriorating relationships, low energy. Automatically.

A part of our conscious doesn’t register if we broke the agreement just a little or a lot, or if it was a big agreement or a little one. It is binary, Yes or no? Did you do what you said you’d do or not? Did you keep your word? The process is unconscious, internally, and the consequences are automatic, whether we keep the agreement or break it. So, what to do?

TIPS TO ASSIST IN KEEPING AGREEMENTS:

1. Write down your agreements and promises. I have an agreement with myself that if it’s not written down I haven’t agreed to it. I also have a list in my Palm Pilot (soon to be transferred to my new iPhone) called, “Pretty good idea, someday maybe”. I’m curious, and active. I daily discover many things I’d like to jump into or learn more about. Some of those I don’t want to forget, so they go in my Someday Maybe list. It’s a great list, and I review it periodically. Every once in awhile I actually commit to something on the list. My best selling book was on this list for three years before I committed to writing it.
2. Learn to say “No”. You have that right, and I’d say responsibility. It’s part of being true to yourself and taking care of yourself and following your heart. I have a stress reduction seminar designed around learning to say no. It’s important, and it’s something a majority has difficulty with.
3. Renegotiate. We make agreements with the information, abilities, knowledge, skills and feelings we have at the time. As we get involved in whatever is the activity and process we gain more information, skill, knowledge and ability and thus at any future moment, if we were to make that choice again it may well be a different or modified choice. We have the right to renegotiate. To change.
4. Make agreements important. If I realize how important they are, and the consequences for breaking them and the rewards for keeping them, I find it easy to realize how important they are. And if I get they are important I will keep them

This has gotten long. I thought I was going to discourse about intentions and methods, focusing on what rather than how and on setting goals, and how those are different from Purpose, Mission, Dreams, Visions. Some other time…

Thanks Greg for asking me to do this. I’m already closer to where I want to be than when I began : )

Written on Christmas Eve in the year 1513 by Fra Giovanni. As beautiful as it is timeless, but then…truth is eternal. While it is titled: “A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia degli Aldobrandeschi,” Most simply refer to it as “A Letter to a Friend.”