APRIL 2019

Business Tips:

15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

Our management is doing a new study on the John Maxwell curriculum with the book called the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. We recommend you pick up a copy or listen to it online if you have the technology to do so. We will be exploring these laws as a team this year.

              The goal in the study is to help each of us learn how to grow and develop ourselves so we have the best chance of becoming the person we were created to be.

~ The Law of Consistency ~

              Motivation gets you going. Discipline keeps you going. There is a magic number of 10,000 hours to put mastery in place in any field. Its not about being jazzy, sexy, or some special formula. It is doing similar things over and over getting better each time. Do you know what you need to improve? You need to improve yourself and your choices and your strengths and abilities. Do you now how you need to improve? Start simple and do it daily. Do you know why you want to keep improving? The why is what keeps you motivated long after the willpower wears off. Check out the 10 reasons in the book why you would stay consistent.

Personal Tips:

~ Resolution 5: Plan & Do ~

RESOLVE TO: To Develop and Implement a Game Plan in each area of my life

Success never goes on sale! The steps are: What do you want, what does it cost, and pay it! Dr. Edward Deming, developed a process in engineering called Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust (PDCA). He was famous for helping Japan turn their economy around with the idea. As the idea was mostly used to check products and services, it can be just as helpful in our own lives. Those who are willing to PDCA continuously, verifying their thinking by studying the results of their consistent PDCAs, will move ahead.

The plan is a way to test one’s hypotheses, beliefs, or models of life. For example, if a person believes he is a poor public speaker and has a few ideas to improve, then he must PDCA those ideas to verify how the crowd would respond to his experiment. The first step in planning is to honestly review areas where he could potentially improve. Asking the right questions is the second step to proper planning. What’s the difference between good speakers and poor speakers? What is the plan that, if implemented, would help him make the improvements needed to become a good speaker?

This leads us to the second step in the PDCA process: do. The best plans in the world are worthless unless people do them. If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, then Hell has thickly paved roads. It’s been said that the plans to fix the political mess in Washington, DC exist, but plans are worthless without someone willing to execute them. One of the books in the Bible is titled the book of Acts. Notice that it isn’t called the book of Thoughts or the book of Best Intentions but the book of Acts. Greatness begins when a person takes the plan step and has the courage to act on it.

Samuel Goldwyn wrote, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Successful people just appear lucky because most people cannot comprehend the ten thousand hours of painful effort already paid by the time anyone notices that they are successful. People who consistently win follow the steps in the PDCA process. Luck is a loser’s excuse not to make a winner’s commitment. No one lucks into long-term success. The number that reappears consistently when researchers study top achievers is ten thousand hours for mastery in any field. It takes a minimum of ten thousand hours of study, practice time, actions, improvements, and adjustments to develop skills, making success look and feel natural.

Deliberate Practice - Abraham Lincoln, amidst many trials and tribulations, invested his ten thousand hours in personal development and people, commenting, “I will work, I will study, and when my moment comes, I will be ready.” Lincoln set out to deliberately build himself by working, studying, learning, and improving—all key aspects of any person’s PDCA process.

Work as a Game - When work becomes a game, the tasks of work turn into the plays of the game. A person doesn’t even realize that he is working because the tasks are enjoyed as part of advancing in the game. Therefore, the secret to mastery in any field hinges on learning to enjoy the deliberate practice by turning the grueling effort into the joy of competing and winning a game.

Lou Holtz: Planning and Doing - How does a young man from a broken home—his parents separated while he was in college and had no wealth or contacts to give him a step up or in—become one of the all-time greats in his field? What is even more impressive is achieving it despite a lisp, an undersized physique, and low self-esteem. Lou Holtz’s rise to success in football coaching is one of the most inspiring stories in America. Lou turned this negative criticism into a positive energy. This is a crucial point when a person is setting goals since many will laugh at a person and his goals, at least when the goals are big ones. But the more the critics laugh, the more determined a person needs to be, finishing what he started through the strength of his convictions. I can’t believe more people don’t have a similar list of goals.” For without goals, it’s difficult to create the passion and energy needed to accomplish an assignment. Lou constantly said: “Be a participant; don’t be a spectator. Do things. Just decide what you want to do and then ask the question, ‘What’s important now?’ Now what do I have to do to accomplish such and such? And that will tell you the action you have to take. It’s not a wish list, it’s a set of things I wanted to accomplish, and it really hasn’t changed that much.”

Lou shared his thoughts on critics: “The only people who aren’t going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing. And the critics, the people who just observe, are never on the inside, never really had to make decisions that affect people’s lives.” Holtz learned, as all successful people do, that tearing down others’ successes is the easiest thing for people to do and that succeeding is much more difficult for them to do. He said, “I welcome all the suggestions in the world from people who have been involved in doing something . . . but somebody who has never done anything except observe and criticize, I don’t weigh that at all.”

Life Skills:

Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends, Fun, Following, Freedom; we call these the 8F’s in life.

Many of these categories can tell one where their priorities are in life by measuring the time one would spend in one of the above categories. I know we don’t have it all figured out, but we have a lot of great sources that speak into these items and we welcome your comments. Please feel free to drop us a line concerning any of them.

THE DAILY DOZEN - WATCH

This year we are going to use this concept to explain 1 word per month that if made into a habit, we believe your life will, no doubt, improve.

              Stand guard against temptations and the forces that lead to destruction. Watch what you watch, watch what you eat, watch what you spend, etc

Notable quotes: They are italicized above.

Something I want you to know:

Stay consistent, follow a plan, and go for it. Watch and stand guard as you go.

 Disclaimer: The content of this Newsletter is provided for information purposes only. No claim is made as to the accuracy or authenticity of the content.