Denny Strecker’s Blog

Once again, a series of tragic events grabs the attention of parents everywhere.

Questions, such as, “What do we do to prevent this from happening again?” and “How do we protect our children?”, are on everybody’s minds.

Community leaders will be debating whether or not anything can be done.

I don’t know what the answer is to this national problem. However, on a very local level –within each of our homes, there is a lot we can do.

Move closer to your kids. If you are already close, move even closer. Developing and maintaining the rapport, communication, and honesty that prevents these tragedies takes a lot of work.

There is an age where children, particularly teens, try to pull away – and become a little harder to hold close than it was when they were young children. However, this is when your children need you the most!

There comes an age when it’s not “cool” to have Mom and Dad around. “Give us our independence!” the kids cry. They become very persuasive…but don’t give in.

It is a scary world out there for kids. And I believe that most kids, deep down, know that they really do need the close relationship they had with their parents. They need advice, correction, rules, and guidance to negotiate the very uncertain waters of their teen years.

Kids, all the way through high school, and well into young adulthood, can benefit from close relationships with parents.

So what is the key? Simple. Time. At exactly the same moment that both you and your kids are swamped with other activities; at the same moment when they tend to pull away…that’s when they need your time the most!

There is no substitute for time spent with you! In a short time, your kids will be out of the house, and on their own. I encourage you to make the best use of the remaining years.

Your children may resist. After all, they have to appear to be “cool.” But don’t give in. Pull them close. They will thank you for it. Someday!

Today’s article talks about being “present minded”. Too many times people worry about what might happen or dwell on what did happen and end up missing what IS happening. Read the story below and make sure you start focusing on the present, and more importantly, teach your children to focus on the now.

By Denis Waitley

What each of us is doing this minute is the most important event in history for us. We have decided to invest our resources in THIS opportunity rather than in any other.

It is helpful to remember this when we consider the passage of time. As I write this, my mother is in her eighties and I will never see fifty again. As the years pass, I am acutely aware that the bird of time is on the wing. At my fortieth high school reunion, I saw people who claimed to be my former classmates. We all had big name tags printed in capital letters so we wouldn’t have to squint with our reading glasses on trying to associate the name with each well-traveled face. It was only yesterday that I was really enjoying high school. What had happened to the four decades in between? Where had they flown?

To the side of the bandstand, where the big-band sound of the late 1940s and 50s blared our favorite top-ten hits, there was a poster with a printed verse for all of us to see. I read the words aloud: “There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.”

“One of these days is YESTERDAY, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed or erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.”

“The other day we should not worry about is TOMORROW, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise, and its poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.”

“This leaves only one day, TODAY. Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities - Yesterday and Tomorrow - that we break down.”

“It is not the experience of Today that drives us mad, it is remorse and bitterness for something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore… Live this one full TODAY.”

Malcolm Forbes believed the important thing is “never say die until you’re dead,” and he lived that example to the hilt. It is, as we realize when we suddenly attend our fortieth high school reunion, a short journey.

But it is difficult to be depressed and active at the same time. So get active! Live TODAY.

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.

This story is over 2,000 years old. It is one of Aesop’s Fables. It talks about the importance of parents setting and enforcing rules to educate their child.

A young man had been caught in a daring act of theft and had been condemned to be executed for it. He expressed his desire to see his Mother, and to speak to her before he was led to execution. This final request was granted. When his Mother came to him he said,

“I want to whisper to you,” and when she brought her ear near him, he nearly bit it off.

All the bystanders were horrified, and asked him what he could mean by such brutal and inhuman conduct.

“It is to punish her!” he said. “When I was young I began with stealing little things, and brought them home to Mother. Instead of rebuking and punishing me, she laughed and said ‘It will not be noticed.’ It is because of her that I am her today.”

“He is right, woman.” said the crowd.

Moral: Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart there from.

A popular person is one who is liked by many people. It’s nice to be popular…but the pursuit of popularity can lead to trouble!

Heather says, “I want to be popular no matter what. I’ll do whatever it takes!”

Monica says, “I’d like to be popular, of course…but not at any price. I insist on being myself!”

As parents, the thought expressed by “Heather” is bound to make us uneasy. Monica, of course, expresses a healthier perspective.

When popularity becomes TOO important to your child, problems arise.

• Sometimes children will do things they know they shouldn’t do…because they are afraid of losing popularity. They may “cave in” to peer pressure.

• Other times, children will feel that they aren’t popular with the “right” crowd. They don’t appreciate their current friends.

• Some kids believe that popularity is based on having the “right” clothes, or participating in the “right” activities. They lose their identity by following the crowd.
When these types of popularity are attained, they are shallow and short lasting. They last only until the next “popularity test” comes up.

Teach your child to be a person who does the right thing…no matter what other people think; and that loyalty, integrity, and kindness will lead to genuine popularity!

Teach them to treat all others, regardless of social status, with respect and courtesy.

Remind them not to be tricked into doing things they know are wrong, in order to gain popularity.

Above all, continually teach them about the value and the importance of your relationship to each other within your family. Teach them about your family history, and your family heritage.

A young person who has a strong sense of family pride won’t succumb to the pressure to be TOO popular.

Popularity will come to your child when people recognize her as a person with integrity!

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.

Our society makes it a habit to reward the mediocre. It has changed its thinking from “Only the Strong Survive” to “We don’t want to hurt anyones feelings” and it is killing us. Teaching people to just be average, or to set the bar as low as possible so that everyone can be successful is insane. Does every single thing need to be a competition - of course not! But the pendulum has now swung to the complete opposite so that nothing is competitive and it is making our children lazy!

Today’s article is for you to use on yourself, and then to create that atmosphere for your child.

Enjoy!

By Nelson Tan

Mastery in one’s career and consciousness growth simply requires that we constantly produce results beyond and out of the ordinary. Mastery is a product of consistently going beyond our limits. For most people, it starts with technical excellence in a chosen field and a commitment to that excellence. If you are willing to commit yourself to excellence, to surround yourself with things that represent this and miracles (when we speak of miracles, we speak of events or experiences in the real world which are beyond the ordinary), your life will change.

It is remarkable how much mediocrity we live with, surrounding ourselves with daily reminders that the average is acceptable. Our world suffers from terminal normality. Take a moment to assess all of the things around you that promote you being ‘average’. These are the things that keep you powerless to go beyond a ‘limit’ you arbitrarily set for yourself. The first step to Mastery is the removal of everything in your environment that represents mediocrity, removing those things that are limiting. One way is to surround yourself with friends who ask more of you than you do, e.g. your teachers, coaches, parents etc.

The Master does his work in a secret way that is different from the masses. He does not treat it as a chore or routine. That secret way lies in the art of communicating with your work. Let your work speak to you as much as you work on it.

What makes an outstanding carpenter? He lets the wood speak to him as much as he works on it with his hammer.

What makes an outstanding basketball or soccer player? He lets the net speak to him as much as he looks and aims towards it.

Thus the Master steps up his thoughts and actions by being courageous in knowing he had to do something for a cause, as much as his capabilities are demanded by fellow beings. It is not just an urgent feeling; it is an act that gives a tremendous sense of purpose when Life has found its greatest calling. By virtue of making more critical decisions, he does less yet impacts more, while the underlying passion drives ceaselessly by telling him to stay on the course for an appointment with Destiny.

Another step on the path of Mastery is the removal of resentment towards Masters. Develop compassion for yourself so that you can be in the presence of Masters and grow from the experience. Rather than comparing yourself or resenting people who have Mastery, remain open and receptive, let the experience be like the planting of a seed within you that, with nourishment, will grow into your own individual Master. Putting it another way, the wisdom of a Master is like light coursing through his body, making it whole and full of light. Any hints of resentment and baggage are covered under the gleam of the eye.

You see, we are all ordinary. But a Master, rather than condemning himself for his ‘ordinariness’, will embrace it and use it as a foundation for building the extraordinary. Rather than using it as an excuse for inactivity, he will use it as a vehicle for correcting which is essential in the process of attaining Mastery. You must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself, to accept results and improve on them. Correct, don’t protect. Correction is essential to power and Mastery.

“When looking for faults, use a mirror, not a telescope.”

This is such a great quote that I had to write about as today’s article.

Parents ask me day after day why their child mis-behaves or has such
a bad attitude, or is so disrespectful. Generally, it only takes a minute
or two to figure out the answers to these questions.

All I have to do is listen and watch the parent speak for a little bit, and
then the gates of enlightenment open. In practically every instance, the
parent is role modeling the behavior that they don’t like seeing. And in
the cases where the parent isn’t role modeling the behavior, they are
allowing it which is almost as bad.

If your child is demonstrating a negative behavior, spend the time to
track down where they learned it. There are usually only a couple of
places that come up - school, day care, friends, or PARENTS!

If you are the culprit - knock it off! Make sure you stop modeling
the negative behavior and start modeling the positive one.

Remember, parents have a lot more influence over their children then
any other person or program. I get parents asking me all of the time
to help “fix” their child and they are surprised when I point this out.
“I am going to work with your child for 1 and 1/2 hours each week to
improve their skills. They are with you the rest of the time. Who has
more influence over their behaviors?”

I may have better tools, but time is the greatest tool you can utilize.

So get to it! Start using that mirror to find those negative habits and
stop using the telescope to assign the blame someplace else.

I encourage everyone to leave a comment on any and all of my articles.
Some of you subscribe to my blog via email, so if you would like to
leave a comment make sure you go to the actual blog and then click
on the comment button.

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.