Denny Strecker’s Blog

I want to tell you about your SECRET POWER.

Whether we are talking about success in fitness, sports, academics or the marketplace, everyone has this SECRET POWER at his disposal - and it will work every single time, if you use it.

This secret power is nothing more than having a daily regimen. I know, it sounds too simple. And it really is simple. But hardly anyone else does it.

The masses flap, flop and flounder. They have no idea what to do from one day to the next, and they is why they fail.

The person who follows a daily regimen of exercise, work or study quickly rises above the herd and becomes better than even he can imagine.

And it doesn’t take that much.

For example, if you do calisthenics for thirty minutes per day, every day, without missing a beat, I can guarantee you that after one year, you’ll be in amazing shape compared to how you look and feel now.

Your regimen may be as simple as 100 assorted pushups, 100 assorted squats and 100 assorted abdominal exercises. Follow this everyday and you’ll be amazed at how much it helps you.

Because I understand the power of daily regimen, I wholeheartedly recommend it in my training sessions. Those who don’t recognize its power would prefer to only Ytrain twice a month. On a regimen like that, you aren’t going to be training for more than a couple of months. You’ll have so many diversions that you’ll forget you were even on a schedule.

Daily regimens guarantee your success.

Today’s story is by Gary Eby and makes a great point that you have to plan to be successful. Things don’t just happen. Great parents are great because they planned and prepared to be parents. Great leaders are great because they planned and prepared to lead. Read this article and then leave a comment on what you are going to plan for.

There are laws! In fact there are certain immutable laws. These laws cannot and will not change. They have not only stood the test of time, they have been in existence since the dawning of time. As surely as there is day and night and as surely as there is good and bad, there is seedtime and harvest. Always has been…always will be. It is the nature of things. In fact, it is essential to the cycle of life.

Without seedtime and harvest there would be no procreation. There would be no crops. There would be no food. Seedtime and harvest are the most basic fundamentals of perpetuating life on plant Earth as we now know it! Most people aren’t aware of this law or it’s far reaching implications. So, let’s examine this concept and discover how it affects our lives, our families, and our business.

Seedtime and Harvest…How does this affect my life?

In basic terms, you reap what you sow! When you plant bananas you reap bananas. When you plant apples you reap apples. Most of us accept this as a self evident truism. Why does it seem far fetched then, to realize that when you sow discord you’ll reap discord in your life? People who sow strife, reap strife. People who sow joy, reap joy! What you plant into other peoples lives will someday, somehow be reaped in your own life. You are what you are today because of seeds you’ve sown in the past. You have what you have today, because of seeds you’ve sown in the past. Today is the harvest of yesterday’s seeds! Life is a garden…can you dig it? You reap what you sow!

How does Seedtime and Harvest affect my family?

More than you’ll ever know! What are you planting into your children? Are you planting time? What about faith? How about integrity? What do they hear at the movie when you are asked their age? Do you somehow justify a "little white lie?" In my experience, the "little white lies" usually turn into "double feature Technicolor!" If you want champions for children then you need to be planting the seeds of greatness. Plant love! Reap love! Plant big dreams and you’ll reap a President or missionary, or a giant of industry! What are you planting into your wife…or your husband?

Kindness…forgiveness…gentleness? Their hearts are fields that you plant into daily. What you reaping? The law of the harvest says that what you sow, you will reap? We should stop and think every time we open our mouth to speak to our spouse. Will this edify or build them up, or will it tear them down? You see, there are no useless words. They either bless or curse. They either build or destroy! We have two ears…and one tongue. Maybe we should listen twice and speak once. What is your harvest in your family? Maybe it’s time to examine your crops…then examine your seeds.

Make yourself a seed!

You can only duplicate yourself by becoming a seed. This can work for or against you. When you plant a single seed a miracle happens. A plant grows and at harvest time the plant produces hundreds of like seeds. An apple seed produces an apple. That apple has numerous seeds. Plant them and you’ll have numerous apples…again with numerous seeds. A single seed can someday produce an entire field of apple trees. The same law of seedtime and harvest applies in your business. If you plant bad seeds into your downline like complaining, bad principles, or laziness, you’ll have an entire downline of lazy complainers with bad principles. They will duplicate accordingly. No one will make any money. They’ll all quit! You’ll either get discouraged and quit or have to start all over again! Wouldn’t it be better to sow seeds of greatness? "Teach your children well!" These famous words to a so ng apply to networking! Make yourself a seed. Plant your talents and gifts into the lives of your downline. Make sure they succeed. If they succeed, you will! Because you reap what you sow. It should be firmly established in your heart by now that if you’ll adjust your thinking from "what’s in it for me" to "what can I do to help", you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Seedtime and Harvest!

Friendship counts. Whatever your life goals are, you’ll achieve them faster and enjoy them more completely if you surround yourself with good friends - and if you yourself are a good friend to those around you.

Based on my experience, I’d say that a good friendship is a relationship of good intent. A good friend is someone who wishes you well, who cares about your problems, who enjoys your triumphs, and who will sacrifice for you. On the other hand, a bad friendship is based on taking rather than giving. A bad friend is one who just sees you as a resource, as a person he can get something from.

Here’s a test that you can use to determine whether you are (or someone you know is) the right kind of friend or
the "what’s-in-it-for-me?" type…

How strongly do you identify with the following comments?

1. "When I am introduced to someone, I am primarily concerned with that person’s importance - financial, political, commercial, etc. - to me or my world."

2. "If I meet someone who has nothing to give me or teach me - or who can’t even amuse me - I act civilly but coolly."

3. "The best thing about having friends is that they are willing to listen to my problems."

4. "The next-best thing about friends is that they will do business with my honey/spouse."

5. "Another value of friendship is that if I get into serious financial trouble, my friends will be financially capable of helping me out."

Rate yourself (or your friend) on a scale of 1 to 4 for each of the above statements, with 4 representing "strongly agree" and 1 representing "strongly disagree."

If you scored a perfect 20, consider yourself on your way to a major career in politics or Hollywood. (I’m guessing.)

If you scored a perfect 5, you will be happy for the rest of your life.

If you scored somewhere in between, decide for yourself which direction you want to move in.

Would You Let a Bird Build a Nest in Your Hair?

Many of the problems people experience come from problems in their thinking. They are tormented by the thoughts of fear; they rehearse past injuries; they are critical of themselves and of others.

Understand this: You have absolute control over the thoughts in your brain. You get to pick and choose which thoughts you allow in.

Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, once said, "Thoughts are like a big flock of birds flying over your head. You can’t stop them from flying over…but you can stop one from building a nest in your hair."

Thoughts of unforgiveness; thoughts of fear; critical thoughts; thoughts of potential disaster…will always tempt you.

When a thought like this suggests itself to you, you can receive it…or refuse it.

Use this phrase when confronted with a negative thought:

"That’s NOT my thought!"

Play along with me for a moment…

What would your reaction be if you just won $25,000 on a game show?

You’d probably say you felt thrilled, elated, or excited.

You would, huh? What if I told you more about the circumstances involved…

You were doing great and had progressed to the last round. You had already won $500,000, but you chose to risk that amount to go for the million dollar question. Unfortunately, you got it wrong and ended up with “only” $25,000.

Now how would you feel? Disappointed, mad at yourself, and just plain awful, right?

So why do you feel so bad if you are walking away with $25,000 more than you had before?

You feel awful because of how you interpret that event. If you focus on what might have been, you will feel very unhappy. But with conscious effort, you can choose to focus on the $25,000 you won rather than the $475,000 you lost.

Here is a great truth of life – what determines our happiness is not so much what happens to us as how we feel about it. Our reaction determines whether we interpret events as positive or negative.

People tend to naturally see the negative side of things because they are easier to find. I was speaking with a parent who was quite upset because she had just learned that she was loosing her job and she is the bread winner for the family.

When she told me the news I immediately responded, “Congratulations! That is great news!!”

She looked at me with a look of utter confusion and said, “Did you hear what I said? I am going to loose my job. This is terrible news.”

I replied, “You have hated your job for years and you said there was no chance of advancement any more so this is great news. Now you can look for something you will enjoy doing and that you will be able to advance in. Who knows? You might even find something that pays more than what you are earning now.”

You choose how to “feel” about events that happen to you. When something happens in your life, look at it from all sides and see where the positives are and focus on them.

A good way to see if you are a positive or a negative person is to look at your children. How do they deal with negative situations? They have learned how to cope from you, so if they are always negative, there is a good chance they learned that from you.

Many years ago, a martial arts student lived in a temple. One day, his teacher and the temple elders decided to send the student on a quest. Upon being summoned, the student was both elated and fearful as he appeared before the elders. They told the student that he must travel to a temple in a far-off foreign land to complete his training. When he arrived, the teachers there would share all their secrets with him.

The student’s travels were filled with many trials and tribulations; he battled many vagabonds, bullies and street thugs. He finally arrived at the distant temple, after walking for almost a year, tattered, weathered, but a different man. He was greeted as a champion and was led directly into the chamber of elders.

The elders handed him a beautiful, leather-bound book, The Book of Knowledge. The book had only one page, which was a mirror. Of course, the student/warrior only saw his reflection. He became frustrated and asked, “Is this a joke?” The elders said, “You are the only one besides us who has made the journey and survived. You are the living example; you can now take our place as the elder and run the temple, so we can leave.” The warrior threw the book to the ground, breaking the mirror. Loudly, he said, “I am happy to be able to have lived the lessons, but I will not waste my time in this jail when so many things are still to be learned.” He then left.

This story is a fine example of the quest for martial arts training. Today, students are not as patient as they once were and they do not realize that lessons are not always clear. The lessons are their experiences, failures, successes, bumps and bruises, frustrations, and their trust in their teachers.
Lessons are constantly presented to you, if you chose to learn. The road to success is paved in sweat, hard work and determination. A very wise man once told me, “The only thing of any worth is something you worked hard for.” Trust in your teacher, but work hard and live the lessons - train to live - live to train. Be the example - live the Black Belt, don’t just tie it around your waist.

By Brian Tracy

According to psychologist Sidney Jourard, fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from your personal relationships. Your interactions and the time that you spend with the people you care about will be the major source of the pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction that you derive daily. The other 15 percent of your happiness will come from your accomplishments. Unfortunately, many people lose sight of what is truly important, and they allow the tail to wag the dog. They sacrifice their relationships, their major source of happiness, to accomplish more in their careers. But one’s career, at best, can be only a minor source and a temporary one, at that of the happiness and satisfaction that everyone wants.

There is no perfect answer to the key question of how to achieve balance in our lives, but there are a number of ideas that can help you to be and have and do more in the areas that are important to you. These ideas often require changes and modifications in the way you think and use your time, but the price is well worth it. You will find that by reorganizing your life in little ways, you can create an existence that gives you the highest quality and quantity of satisfaction overall. And this must be your guiding purpose.

The ancient Greeks had two famous sayings: “Man, know thyself” and “Moderation in all things.” Taken together, those two ideas are a good starting point for achieving the balance that you desire. With regard to knowing thyself, it is very important to give some serious thought to what you really value in life. All trade-offs and choices are based on your values, and all stress and unhappiness come from believing and valuing one thing and, yet, finding yourself doing another. Only when your values and your activities are congruent do you feel happy and at peace with yourself.

So knowing yourself means knowing what you really value, knowing what is really important to you. The superior man or woman decides what is right before he or she decides what is possible. The advanced human being organizes his or her life to assure that everything that he or she is doing is consistent with his or her true values. It is essential for you to organize your life around yourself, rather than to organize yourself around the demands of your external world.

The second quote, “Moderation in all things,” is a wonderful and important dictate for successful living. But, at the same time, you know that you can’t really be successful in any area by being moderate in that area. Peter Drucker once wrote, “Wherever you find something getting done, you find a monomaniac with a mission.” You know that single-minded concentration on a goal or objective is absolutely necessary for achievement of any kind in a competitive society.

So what’s the solution? Over the years, I have worked with tens of thousands of men and women who have spent a lot of time and effort struggling to achieve balance in their lives. I have found that there is a simple formula; it is simple in that it is easy to explain, but you need tremendous self-discipline and persistence to implement it in your life.

The formula revolves around a concept of time management, or what you might want to call life management. Time management is really a form of personal management in which you organize your 24 hours a day in such a way that they give you the greatest possible return of happiness and contentment.

The key to time management, after you have determined your values and the goals that are in harmony with those values, is to set both priorities and posteriorities. The importance of setting priorities is obvious. You make a list of all the things that you can possibly do and then select from that list the things that are most important to you based on everything you know about yourself, about others and about your responsibilities. The setting of posteriorities is often overlooked. It is when you carefully decide which things you are going to stop doing so that you will have enough time to start doing something else.

The greatest single shortage we experience in America today is that of time. We suffer from what has been called “time poverty.” Men and women everywhere feel that their biggest single challenge is that they simply do not have enough time to do all the things that they have to do or want to do. People today feel pressured from all sides and are under an inordinate amount of stress. They feel overworked, fatigued and incapable of fulfilling all the responsibilities that they have taken on.

The starting point to alleviate this time poverty is to stop and think. Most people are so busy rushing back and forth that they seldom take the time to think seriously about who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. They engage in frantic activity, instead of thoughtful analysis. They get so busy climbing the ladder of success that they lose sight of the fact that the ladder may be leaning against the wrong building.

When my wife, Barbara, and I started our family, we were faced with a common dilemma: how can we balance the demands of work and home with the finite amount of time we are all given?

Here’s the answer I discovered: The key to success in a busy society is to devote your time to only two areas during the period of time when your family needs you, when your children are between the ages of birth to about 18 to 20 years. During this period of time, you need to curtail virtually all of your outside activities. You need to focus on two major areas your family and your career as I have done over the years. You need to place your family’s needs above all else and then organize your work schedule so that you can satisfy those needs on a regular basis. Then, when you work, you must concentrate single-mindedly on doing an excellent job.

Most people are time wasters. They waste their own time, and they waste your time as well. To be successful and happy, you must discipline yourself to work all the time you work. The average employee works at about 50 percent of capacity. Fully 80 percent of people working today are underemployed in that their jobs do not really demand their full capacities. Only 5 percent of workers surveyed recently felt that they were working at the outside limits of their potentials.

But this is not for you. You must resolve to work all the time you work. You must decide that from the time you start in the morning until the time you finish in the evening, you will work 100 percent of the time. Even if no one is watching you, you should be aware that everyone is watching you. Everybody knows everything. In every company, everyone knows who is working and who is not. Your job must be to work all the time you work. If people come by and want to chat, you simply smile at them and say, “Could we talk about this later?” Tell them that you have to get back to work.

Have a written list, and work on your list every day. Write down everything as it comes up, and add it to your list. Set priorities on your time, and be certain that you are working on the things that are most important to your boss and to your company. Refuse to get drawn into the time-wasting activities of the people around you. Work all the time you work.

Remember that to be successful, you must become a monomaniac with a mission. This is true today, and it has always been true in our competitive society. To be successful at your job, you must work fast and efficiently and nonstop all the time you are on the payroll. You must become an expert at time management. You must become so efficient and effective that you get twice as much done as anyone else. In this way, you will advance your career at the fastest rate possible, and you will also be on top of your job most of the time, and it will be unnecessary for you to take work home for the evenings and weekends.

Then, when you have finished your work, you can devote your full attention to your family and to the other important people in your life. The Bible says, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” One of the meanings of this is that if you are thinking about your work while you are with your family, or if you are thinking about your family when you are at work, you end up accomplishing far less in each area. However, if you are on top of your work, when you come home you can devote yourself single-mindedly again, like a monomaniac to your relationships and to enhancing the quality of your interactions with the most important people in your life.

The key to a happy family life is communication. And it is not quality of time but quantity of time that counts. Quality moments those little moments that are precious and important come unbidden and, usually, unexpectedly. They arise during the process of spending a large quantity of uninterrupted time with one or more people. You cannot dictate those moments in advance. You cannot decide to have quality time. You do not go to it. It comes to you.

There are a variety of ways to extract the greatest amount of quality and happiness from your relationships with the members of your family. Perhaps the most important is to spend unbroken time with your spouse on a daily basis. Of course, you should spend time together talking after the children have gone to bed, but you should also seek out and utilize small segments of time during the morning and early evening during which you can communicate and interact. One of the most important things that couples can do is spend the first 30 to 60 minutes after work debriefing each other and discussing the day’s activities.

Your children also have a tremendous need to communicate with you. In fact, in my research on how to raise super kids, I found that the one factor that was more important than any other was the amount of one-on-one time that the parents spent with the children. When parents don’t spend a lot of time with their children individually, they send a message to their children that they are not very valuable or important. Children then react by experiencing feelings of inferiority, lowered self-esteem, and negative self-images, and this is expressed in poor grades and behavioral problems. But when the parents take the time to sit down with their children and ask questions and listen to what is going on in their minds, the children tend to feel a deep sense of value and importance that is manifested in self-confidence, happiness, and good relationships with others.

The key is learning to use your time better. You cannot get more hours out of each day, but you can put more of yourself into each of those hours. Turn off the television and spend time talking with the members of your family. Never read newspaper of books when a member of your family wants to communicate with you. Put the reading material aside. Concentrate single-mindedly on the most important people in your world. Everything else can wait.

In regard to your work and family, continually ask yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” Consider if what you are doing today will matter a week or a year from today. Sometimes, we become preoccupied with small things that are not really important in the long run. But what is important in the long run is the quality of our home life.

You don’t have to be a superman or superwoman to properly balance the demands of your work and the needs of your family. You must, however, be more thoughtful, be a better planner, use your time more effectively, and continually think of ways to enhance the quality of your life in both areas. If you set this as a goal and resolve to work toward it every day, you will gradually become far more efficient, far more effective, and a far happier human being. And that’s the most important thing of all.

About the Author:

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area. For more information, please go to www.BrianTracy.com.

As you go through your day, you encounter thousands of opportunities to operate either efficiently or inefficiently.

Where you put your car keys when you come home at night. Which drawer you keep your coffee in. Which day you do your laundry. Which hand you pick the phone up with.

For example, when you are sitting at your desk, you might pick the phone up with your right hand. Because you are right handed, you will need to switch hands in order to take any notes or write anything down.

Why not just train yourself to pick up the phone with your left hand?

And, while you are thinking about it, where EXACTLY should your pen be?

I know. Sounds like picky, small time stuff. Until you realize that your day is made up of thousands of such activities…thousands of such choices.

Study your personal ergonomics. Resolve to live your day as skillfully as possible.

Once you have picked up this habit, make sure you start to show your children the same principals. Give them the benefit of your experience.

Often times we place unnecessary stress on ourselves by shouldering burdens that belong to other people.

You have a neighbor whose life is a mess…and is in the habit of unburdening herself to you.

Or, you begin following a story on the news about some family who is having a crisis.

When you find yourself stressed in situations like these, you are assuming false responsibility.

You are feeling bad about something that is really not connected to you.

Am I saying you shouldn’t care? Nope. The fact is, though, that you have people, issues, and situations are ARE your responsibility. Devote yourself FULLY to these areas!

If everybody looked to their own house, to their own responsibilities, everybody would be more effective and less stressed.

The other day I was in line in traffic, waiting for the light to turn green.
Finally it changed and the line slowly began to move forwards.

Then, the car in front of me stopped to allow a person from the side street
to merge in front of her.

Then, we began to move again. The car in front of me slipped through the
intersection as the light turned red again. I was stuck waiting again.

I’m sure the lady in front of me was patting herself on the back for being such
a nice person…letting the car in front of her enter the line of traffic.

But — she was demonstrating false courtesy. You see, she didn’t just give
up her place in line. She gave up mine, too! And my place is not for HER
to give up!

If you do something nice for somebody and it inconveniences you (and only you),
that is true courtesy. We should all be looking for opportunities to perform acts
acts of true courtesy.

But if you perform the same act, and it inconveniences others in the process…it’s
not courtesy at all.