Denny Strecker’s Blog

A principal at the local elementary school called a new teacher into his office one day.

He said, “You are the best teacher I have ever had in the 20 years I have been here, and I have a special assignment for you.”

The teacher was excited to hear what this challenge was - not to mention enjoyed hearing that she was the best teacher the principal had ever seen! The teacher asked, “What is it?”

To which the principal replied, “I have gathered the smartest and best students in the school and put them in one class. I would like you to take this ‘gifted’ group of children for the semester and teach them everything they need to know for the year.”

The teacher was overjoyed at the idea of having the most ‘gifted’ children in the school and immediately began to think of all the things she could teach them. She thanked the principal and went straight to the class room to begin.

The semester came and went and the principal called the teacher into his office.

The principal said, “Well, I see that every student in your class not only earned an ‘A’ grade but that their scores on the state exams have all improved significantly.”

The teacher replied, “While I would like to take the credit for that, I must honestly say it wasn’t hard since you gave me the most ‘gifted’ children in the school.”

The principal then said, “That is what I wanted to speak to you about. Actually, we just randomly picked children and put them in your class.”

The teacher was surprised to hear this and after a moment said, “Well, I am the best teacher you have ever had so it only makes sense that I gave the students the best education.”

Again the principal chimed in, “Actually, I just picked your name out of a hat.”

Moral of this story: People believe what they are told and will fulfill your expectations

This story demonstrates the point that people - especially children - believe what they are told. Tell your child that they are bad and they will behave badly. Tell your child they are stupid and they will fulfill your wishes. Now, tell them they are smart and see what happens. Tell them they are kind and watch the results. Tell them they are honest and watch how they turn out. Now how are you going to talk to your child today?

Here is a video I created to describe the benefits of taking karate classes
at Denny Strecker’s Karate
Please click the Comment button below and leave me your thoughts.

What if I told you there’s one simple question you can ask your spouse every day that would completely change your relationship for the better? If your marriage is lukewarm at best, asking your spouse this question could add new life and vitality to your relationship.

Wives, imagine if your husband came walking through the door after returning from a tough day at work and, after the usual greetings, asked you this: “Honey, what can I do for you that would make your day?”

Then, once you picked your jaw up off the floor, imagine being able to tell him that one thing that would make your day better - and then seeing him drop everything to do it.

Husbands, how incredible would it be to have your wife call you at the office and ask,

“Honey, what can I do for you that would make your day?”

The trouble with this question is that it’s simple to ask, but sometimes following through on the request is difficult. Your spouse could ask you to do that one thing you dread more than anything else. Or he or she could ask you to do something that’s not very pleasant, it may hurt you, or it might ruin your day to do it. It might cause you to be vulnerable in ways you don’t want to consider.

This question can go beyond marital relationships. You can ask your kids this question. You might want to put some ground rules in place before they answer, though. For instance, it can’t involve money, etc. But when your kids get the opportunity to ask you to do something, it will make their day.

Before you ask, make sure your mind is set on doing whatever they ask, no matter how hard it is for you. Obviously, unethical and immoral things are off limits. But, otherwise, it’s a great test to see how willing you are to serve your spouse.

One final note: Don’t give your spouse a guilt trip for telling you what will make his or her day. Don’t say, “OK, I’ll do it if you really want me to.” Just do it with a cheerful heart. After all, you asked for it.

We are always at war.    Our “better self” is always at war with our “weaker self.”

Weakness is always seeking fuller expression in your life.

You wake up and don’t feel good.   Should you go to work…or should you tough it out?

You are at a critical juncture!

If you decide to go back to bed, you’ve taught your weaker self that, if it can succumb to some symptoms, it can have its way!  Weakness wins!

On the other hand, if you decide to tough it out, you’ve taught your weaker self a powerful lesson…that it can’t overcome your will power…your “better self!”

Teach this skill to your child while they are young and they will enjoy a much more successful life!!

We all have the same 24 hours each day. So why is it that some people get so much more done than others? The answer is easy - those people mange their time more effectively than the rest.

It is interesting to hear people say that they don’t have enough time in the day to get things done but then when I ask them how they spend their day, they aren’t able to give me any real information. So I approach this issue the same way as any other - in order to get the results you want, you need to learn what is wrong first. Start a time journal - For 1 week, track everything that you do and write it down in your journal.

The first mistake people tend to make is to sit down at the end of the day and then try to remember every minute of the day that is now over. This never works. You must be actively using the journal and write it in hourly or more. This will help make sure you don’t miss anything.

The second mistake people make is to write down too broad of descriptions. For example, watched TV. I recommend that you write down what you watched. Sitting with your family watching an educational program may weigh differently than watching an all-day marathon of shows you have already seen.

So now you have a week’s worth of your time logged - now what? Go through it and look for areas or “blocks” of time that are not being used effectively.  It is pretty amazing when you start to actually SEE your day on paper, how much time is wasted or duplicated. You may be able to move some things around and put other things together which end up saving you time. An example would be, I used to go to the Post Office to drop our mail for the day each night at the end of work. I found that fairly often I was passing the Post Office during the day when I went to go eat lunch. So I moved dropping the mail to lunch time and now I don’t have to make that trip each night. I am not only saving time, I am also saving gas!

As with all of our skills, just because you have done this once doesn’t mean it is done and you can forget about it. Inspect your results every couple of months and see if you need to tweak anything to continue to maximize your day.

Once you have learned this skill, now it is time to teach it to your child. That is when you know you have learned this skill and made it a habit.

The replay for this month’s Tele-seminar is now available at:

Click Here to Listen to this month’s call

Click the comments button below if there is a topic you would like covered in an upcoming call.

By Joseph McCaffrey, M.D., FACS

Here’s a quick suggestion for relieving stress: Don’t ask your brain to do something it’s not particularly good at.

Much of the stress in today’s world comes from having to juggle multiple tasks and responsibilities. If you try to keep track of all that in your head, you’re using some of your brainpower to remember and prioritize. Which means it’s not available to actually think. Not only that, you wind up with an underlying concern that you may be forgetting something important… or that you may not be doing the most important things first.

In short, you feel stress.

Don’t do it.

When you’re faced with multiple tasks and responsibilities, take a moment to write them down. Automatically, that frees up the part of your brain that was trying to keep track of all that stuff. Now you can focus your full mental capabilities on what your wonderful brain does best: problem solving and creating.

The simple act of writing things down changes the overwhelming to the manageable.

Usually we don’t get tripped up by difficult, hard to anticipate mistakes.  No, we usually stumble over things that could have been avoided.

Make a habit of this.   After you’ve done something (completed a math problem; painted a door; written a letter; paid the bills, etc.) take a step back and look at your work.

Have you missed anything?   Do the numbers seem to add up?

This type of double checking will prevent these pesky, easy to avoid mistakes.

Here are my all-time favorite 10 Strategies for RAISING the Self-Esteem of your children!

Please take the time to review these ideas with your children!

1. Always, always tell the truth

2. Take responsibility! If you did something you shouldn’t have, admit it! Don’t blame others, or make excuses!

3. If somebody gives you a compliment, smile and say “Thank you!”

4. Complete assignments early

5. Avoid negative people; pick friends who have high self-esteem

6. Help raise the self-esteem of others!

7. Dream big dreams about your future!

8. Be organized, both with time and things, at all times

9. Be healthy! Exercise regularly; eat only those foods that are good for you!

10. Pick a couple of activities that are important to you, and MASTER them!

I had several meetings with parents over the weekend and the same theme continued to come up. Each time I heard something to the effect of, “My child is X years old. I shouldn’t have to tell them…”

To which I always reply, “Only if you have taught them that skill.”

Too often, adults expect a behavior from a child simply because of their age. “I shouldn’t have to tell my 9 year old to clean up his room!” The fact that the child is 9 years old has no relevance to being able to clean up his room. A child will clean his room once you have showed him what your definition of clean is, where all of his belongings go, checked on his progress over several weeks - or even months, and put rewards and consequences into place to keep him challenged.

And remember, we are all human. Children - just like adults - forget things and need to be reminded occasionally what to do. This is not the time to start yelling and screaming at them. This is an opportunity for you to lead by example and remind them nicely.

I would love to hear some comments about what tasks your child is struggling to learn. Click the comments button and post your story….I will choose one or two and discuss them in a future post.