A new tool
As a Boomer, I’m still quite old-school in many things. One happens to be that I still use paper and pencil rather than a keyboard to note thoughts and plan. I seem to think better when forming the letters. Who knows…it might also be due to my art background.

Today, I was introduced to an easy-to-use, handy little tool to do mind-mapping online.  A huge advantage to using this program is that it can be shared with your team. You can even allow them to add their input and alter the map, making it great for group projects. It can be added to docs and even your blog or web-page. Very versatile little tool to aid your brainstorming!

Best of all it’s free! We all like free. Check it out at www.bubbl.us Let me know what you think.

(Not sure what mind-mapping is? I didn’t know for a long time!  According to Wikipedia…”A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.”

A  great video
Yanik Silver recently sent a tweet that I’d like to pass on to you all.  The concept is phenonenal!  “Unique Genius and Business Through Enjoyment” Combine Enjoyment, Meaning and making Money.  There’s no opt-in or anything.

I really recommend your viewing it…Click Yanik’s link http://budurl.com/jruv

Have a GREAT, Blessed day!

Our team has been undergoing a few changes over the past couple of weeks.  I am reminded that the only constant in life is change!  We MUST remain flexible!

Change often leads to a sense of insecurity and uncertainty…especially, if it is not of our choosing   How will this move affect me and my family?  Gosh, things were just starting to go well, now what?  There goes the income while I regroup and find a new path!

The challenge, again, is to remain flexible.  Even if we don’t immediately see the benefits we can gain from the change, be assured that there is one if you’ll accept it.

I firmly believe that my Creator has a plan for my good.  Each change, gargantuan or miniscule, has eventually led me further along that plan.  What I have discovered in retrospect is that how quickly I realized that gain depended on my attitude and mindset.

For instance:  My divorce after 24 years of marriage was devastating.  My Pollyanna view of life and family was crushed.  No longer were we living in the Cleaver house.  I was no longer a Donna Reed or any other role model I had grown up with.  I was unprepared to take a job outside of my home.  I was never supposed to have had to support myself, much less my children!  I wallowed in despair and depression.  It was fueled by anger and resentment by his turning his back on our children also and my having to accept full responsibility for them.  I was unprepared.   I chose to accept the role of Victim for many years and it nearly destroyed me before I learned to climb out and face the world squarely and conquer it.

Compare that with our Katrina experience.  Living in Gulfport, MS our lives couldn’t help being adversely affected.  Yes, I was in shock.  Yes, I relived the experience many times (we foolishly stayed).  Yes, my home and property sustained some damage, ‘tho God’s protective shield kept the damage to a minimum compared to those around me.  Yes, my income was immediately cut to 0.  For a year, I traveled between Chattanooga, TN and home, rebuilding property and trying to reconnect with  and reestablish my Interior Design business.  I was also pushing full force into my network marketing business with NO success.

I could have easily slipped into the Victim role again.  Who would have blamed me?  Many people I know did;  some are still there.  Why didn’t I?  I made a choice not to accept being the Victim.  My mindset was Survivor.  I continually strove to complete the tasks necessary to move our lives forward.  I kept my focus on what we had and how we could build on that.  I’d learned the hard lesson years before and refused to return to that state.

Traveling the Survivor path wasn’t easy.  It meant daily focusing on and building on what we had and finding the opening doors.  I had to be aware and flexible and remain positive.  It meant consistently taking baby steps, and sometimes leaps of faith, through those doors.  The result was that we were well on track and back within a year.  The “Victims” I know are still wallowing 3 years later.

The moral of the stories?  Accept change and be flexible.  Look for and find the Golden Nugget in the change.  Opportunity is everywhere.  Then, build on it.  Believe that there is a reason for the change and it is to redirect your path in a good way.  By accepting the new direction and adjusting your mindset, you will continue forward motion instead of stagnating…or worse, sliding backward.

Balance.

It is a dilema we all face.  Without it, our lives quickly run amuck.  Too much time and energy spent in one area causes deprivation and frustration in another.

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately.  This time learning a lesson from my children.

My son and daughter-in-law both have very demanding careers…he is a 3rd year Fellow in Cardiology at Duke University and she is a full-time attorney with the firm of Kirkland, Ellis in their Chicago office.  Stephanie is up for Partner this year and is required to spend some time each month in Chicago or wherever in the US the trial may be. Matthew, depending on the month’s service has had some “On Call” time and has sometimes had patient responsibility 7 days a week during his first two years. They live in a beautiful home in Durham, N. C. with their 1 year old twins and dog.  They are an up and coming young professional family.

What makes them so unique is the balance in their lives.  Their routine is like watching a choreographed dance.  They have breakfast together whenever possible, sharing cooking and feeding responsibilities.  Stephanie works from home with incredible discipline.  Their Nanny arrives at 9, allowing her to disappear into her office ’til 6 or 6:30pm.  She does surface for a short break several times a day when she fully engages with the kids.  Matthew seems to arrive some time between 5 and 6pm.  That is his time alone with the babies.  They cook and clean the kitchen together, spend time playing with and reading to the babies and always put them to bed together at about 8.  Then it is time together or, if there is research or work to do, back to their respective offices.  When Stephanie is out of town, the schedule slides around a little with more help from my daughter Stephanie who lives about a mile away.

Both are active outside of the home also.  Stephanie volunteers at the Children’s Science Museum, with a service organization, and their active neighborhood organization.  Matthew still swims when possible.  They are active in their church and have had a study group in their home.  They have a “date night” once a week, thanks to sister Stephanie’s babysitting, and they have a very active social life with friends.

They are amazing!  I certainly admire (and love) them.

So how do they do it all?  First of all, there is love…of God, their family and friends, and their chosen professions. Then, there is a lot of teamwork and communication and planning.  Lastly, there is an inner drive, a determination to make it work and to do whatever it takes to succeed.  Napoleon Hill calls it burning desire.

I keep this picture in front of me as I try to find balance in my own life.  Granted, in my home life, there is only one of me to wear many hats…Grandmother/Mother, daughter, homemaker, cook, gardener, handyman…but in my church and my business I do have invaluable teams.  People who care about us and who are there to share what they know and can with us.  I have benefited from everything Ann Sieg has brought together.  I am realizing that as my downline grows, they, too, are benefiting from her training and our team.

It is up to me to lead by example.  That means I must continue to grow my business by prospecting and training my own strong team to duplicate my success.  I have to find a balance between the two…to teach each of my team to stand on their own and become a problem solver and solutions provider while reaching more people and bringing them into the team.

As I balance my business time, I also have to balance family time with business time and not forget personal development, spiritual grounding and exercise….and some fun time, too.  It is not easy.  Life seems balanced for a while and then I get distracted as something becomes all consuming and everything goes haywire!  I’m no spring chicken and seem to be slowing down;  but I am a tough old bird!   So I just have to get back in there and redistribute, reorganize and try again.

So what keeps me going back in?  It’s my Dream.  It is my burning desire.  And I am determined that if I can have success, I’m going to help others have their success.

Take control.  Plan.  You have the ability to design your life and philosophies…to design and achieve your Dream…to positively affect your world.   A philosophy of balance and personal responsibility allows you to live from an inner core of peace and integrity.

May your life be filled with the blessings that a philosophy of balance and personal responsibility brings.

My articles over the past couple of weeks have been focusing on achieving out Dreams and how they affect not only ourselves, but interact with others.  As a follow up to that, I’ve had a few reflections on personal responsibility in choosing and reaching for our dreams.

1. Personal responsibility begins from the inside by taking responsibility for our thoughts, choices, and reactions. Then we can be responsible for the circumstances we create in our world.

2. We have the divine gift of free will. We are spiritual beings living and making conscious choices in a physical world. Conscious choice is a gift that carries great responsibility.

3. Every choice that we make, and its corresponding action, can benefit or harm our world. Even avoiding choices or avoiding taking action will have consequences.

4. Only our choices and actions today have the power to bring the Dream into reality.

5. When situations arise and you blame something or someone else for your problems and their solutions, it is often an unconscious reaction.  That exact thought is the first problem to solve.  Instead adopt a great philosophy of responsibility:  “When things are working, I am responsible. When they need fixing, I am responsible.“.

6. True personal independence is the freedom from unconscious reaction–the ability to choose actions and make choices that will positively influence the future of our lives and our world.

7. As Steve Bruckhorst says, “The richest blessings follow those who follow the rules and honor the universal laws for abundant living:  laws for wellness, success, relationships, prosperity, spirituality, and service to others.When you follow the rules, life works. If you think you ever really get by with breaking the rules, you are only fooling yourself.”

8. The Creator knows what it is we need to be doing and provides us with plenty of chances to get on the right track.  However, we cannot expect to have unlimited chances, or even that we will have tomorrow.  People waste precious time believing that there will be more time tomorrow than there is today.  Today is the perfect day to accept and develop our gifts and talents.

9. Another Bruckhorst quote…”Living serenely does not mean that we deny problems or avoid the responsibility for solving them. Just the opposite–we find the clarity and presence of mind to deal with the issues of daily living in positive constructive ways….”

Personal responsibility means being accountable for what we think, say, and do. It involves
working on our own character and making our own choices rather than placing blame for situations and circumstances.  It means choosing to design a life that honors our values and purpose.

No matter how we try, we cannot control all the circumstances in life; but we can learn from them. We can consciously choose to allow every circumstance to make us stronger, wiser, more knowledgeable, more skillful, and more loving.

Remember, our reaction to any circumstance is always a reflection of our own level of spiritual and mental development.  Increased understanding provides more options than were available previously. In all situations–in our personal lives and careers–we can pause and ask these questions:

• “How is my current level of growth and understanding affecting my reaction to this event or problem?”
• “What in this event or problem will bring new insights and solutions, and how can I use them to make everything right instead of waiting for someone else?”

Take control.  You have the ability to design your life and philosophies…to design and achieve your Dream…to positively affect your world.   A philosophy of personal responsibility allows you to live from an inner core of integrity.

May your life be filled with the blessings that a philosophy of personal responsibility brings.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” — Proverbs 23:7, Bible

As you all know by now, I read A LOT. My family has always put a lot of store in education. Though my Grandfathers and my Daddy were unable due to life circumstances to pursue or continue their college educations, they all continued their self-guided educations throughout their lives. My Mama, at 84 years young, continues in the tradition, encouraging the younger generations not only to look to academics and reading, but to life education and development of a generous Spirit.

There was recently a story on the news about a young soldier in Baghdad…

His name was Jason Dunham and he was a corporal in the US Marines. The story picks up with Jason as he was talking with the men in his unit. They wondered whether a person could jump on a grenade and survive by putting it under their helmet. Deep down they all most likely knew that it wouldn’t work – yet on the streets of Baghdad soon all topics of conversation can become quickly exhausted, and hypothetical solutions to real life problems can pass the time.

Unfortunately for Jason Dunham, the circumstance that he had hypothesized about arrived just a few weeks later. However, fortunately for his unit Corporal Jason Dunham was there. In this life and death scenario there is no time to think. There is only time for fight or flight. Jason chose fight and performed above and beyond the call of duty. He threw his helmet and body over the grenade and gave his life for his friends. Jason was nominated for The Congressional Medal of Honor. He was twenty years old.

Young and old lay down their lives for others daily…and it is not only in war situations or physically. What causes people to give their lives for others? I believe it takes a great deal of character. First and foremost it takes a realization that life isn’t about you. It is about making a difference, making an impact and it is about giving.

These people respond this way in a crisis situation because they made the decision long before the situation arose. They are unselfish. But more, they realize that life is not about them, it is about making a difference…it is about others. Praise God, you and I are not is life or death situations everyday but we are in situations where we have to make choices. We must decide right now how we will respond. What is in our hearts?

What should our overall attitude on life be? That attitude simply put is that it is better to give than receive. It is honorable to view the lives and well being of others above yourself. If we can take any pearl of wisdom from the extraordinary lives and attitudes of Corporal Dunham it is that making an impact on the world is not always about recognition, power, money or personal gain. Sometimes the greatest success is one who gives himself up so others can succeed. That is the mark of the ultimate high achiever.

Decide today how you will respond in your moments of crisis – whether it is in your network marketing business, personal or life and death. As you make your plan on how to achieve your Dream, remember the selfless lessons of Corporal Dunham and the others who have gone before you…those who have given to ensure your safety and your Success. Be a participating Team member. Focus on making a difference in someone else’s life…an impact in the world around you.

“My preferred person today is one who is always aware of the needs of others, or their pain and fear and unhappiness, and their search for self-respect. I once liked clever people. Now I like good people.” — Soloman Freehof