Faith

Faith is the cornerstone of every ambition.  Without it, dreams collapse under their own weight.

No compromise

There's a time and place for compromises.   My life just doesn't happen to be one of them.

Rock & Roll

A life of sex, drugs and rock & roll may sound like a lot of fun but I find it interesting how many people I've met who lived that life for years and are now seeking God.   It's like eating candy all the time, might be yummy, but eventually you start craving some real food.  

Be Yourself

It's interesting... I've owned so many pets over the years, and each one has had it's own distinct personality.  Regardless of if they were bold or shy, loving or independent, cuddly or rambunctious, I've loved them each exactly as they were and none of them - not one ever - tried to be anything other than who they were.

So why do we feel the need to put up a false front?  Let's be loved for exactly who we are. 

What's your 'Why'?

No matter how disillusioned, disappointed, disgusted or even downright disadvantaged we are in any area of our lives, we often tend to stay right where we are - despite the discomfort - because we don't know 'How' to change it.  

Knowing 'How' is never the answer.  We need only have a compelling enough 'Why' to move us forward and then the 'How' will be revealed bit by bit as we take action.  Yes, we will make missteps along the way.  But 'two steps forward, one step back' is infinitely better than standing still in the muck, slowly sinking away.    

No excuse

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. " ~ Bejamin Franklin

If you want to break through and succeed at any area of your life, stop making excuses as to why it can't be done, and just start taking the actions to make it happen.    To quote Nike 'Just do it.'

Enjoy the journey

A happy life is made up of many happy moments.  Unfortunately many of us miss those moments as we try to create a happy life.

Happiness is...

Happiness is not a gift the world gives you.  It is a gift you give yourself, and then share with the world.

Stay in the moment

When you think about the future you want, do you start seeing all the challenges along the way?  

Or perhaps you remember all the times you failed or all the times someone else, or just life itself messed you up? 

It's quite normal, most everyone does it.  

But your future is not determined by your past.  Nor is it determined by your imagined problems.  Unless you allow those things to control your mind.  

Your future, your bright, beautiful future is always created in the now.  What you're doing in this present moment, will always determine what comes next.   

Forget the past - it's gone.  Don't fuss over the future - it hasn't happened. Stay in the moment. Right now, with me, take the steps, big or small, that lead to your desired future.   Then just keep going.  Just keep on going.

Appreciation

Before you go out into the world seeking more, you need to cultivate an appreciation for what you already have.  It's very difficult to go from saying 'No, no, no' to the world around you to saying 'Yes' to that which you want.   If you instead focus on saying 'Yes' to the things in your life that you currently appreciate, then you will automatically say 'Yes' to more of that.  

Ironically, if all your focus in on the things you don't like, it's effectively saying 'yes' to more of that too.

Get Uncomfortable

"No Pain, No Gain"

Listen, if you are comfortable in every area of your life, you have a problem.  You are stuck in your 'comfort zone', doing those things that are comfortable for you to do.  Now, you might hate what you're doing, but doing what you've always done, is still more comfortable than the risk of the unknown.

Decide right now, with me, right this very minute to do something different.  Do that thing you keep telling yourself you ought to be doing.  Send that resume, talk to that person, take that action - that thing that will make you uncomfortable - because that's where the growth is.  That's where life begins.  Do it. Do it now.

Kaizen

"If you're doing something the same way you have been doing it for ten years, the chances are you are doing it wrong."

— Charles F. Kettering: was an American inventor and businessman
 
The Japanese have a philosophy that if you see someone you haven't seen for a while, you ought to be able to tell what's different.  It's a belief in Kaizen - constant and never-ending improvement.  Life doesn't stand still, why should we?  At the end of every day ask yourself, 'How did the day go? What could I have done better?' And then visualize tomorrow being better by utilizing the lessons of today.

Surrender

"Let go and let God"

There's this lie that we keep telling ourselves.  That if we really, I mean really, 'let go and let God', somehow we'll end up as a backseat driver in our own lives and never see the life we wanted.  But the truth is most of us have been stuck in commuter traffic jam hell in our lives, going the same route we see everyone else taking (so surely that's got to mean it's the right way, right?) but not really going anywhere.   When we finally surrender the driver's seat to God, He act as the GPS to our dreams and fast-tracks us.  Doesn't always seem like that when He takes us down the dirt roads in life but what He knows that we don't is, we'll save a lot of time avoiding the traffic jams that way.

Success

"Do today what others won't, so you can do tomorrow what others can't."

Success is not an accident, nor an entitlement.  It's a result of years of dedicated, committed action.

Decide

"People do not decide to become extraordinary, they decide to accomplish extraordinary things."


Sir Edmund Hillary
 
Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Terry Fox, Alexander G.Bell - What made these people extraordinary?  Nothing, except that they decided the status quo simply wasn't good enough and it drove them to do something different.    
 
If you are not happy with your status quo, then is it not time to stop accepting it and actually do something different?

Shift

"If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got."

If you're not happy with the way your life is now, then you need to start changing what you're doing.  Don't try to suddenly act differently, that'll last a week.  Create new habits and you create a new life.

Action First

"Fake it til you make it" ~ Steven Tyler

Y'know, so often those things we avoid, that we procrastinate on, that we always find some excuse not to get to it today, are the very things we need to be doing in order to make our lives better.

I'll tell you a secret; if you can just get yourself to start doing it, very often, the desire to do it will follow.

Action

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next to best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
— Theodore Roosevelt
 
One essencial key to realizing your dreams is to actually take action on them.  The right time to start is now. Focus on your 'why' and as you move forward in faith, the 'how' will become clear.

Celebrate

If you truly appreciated how glorious you really are, and the wonders that you could perform if only you'd let yourself, and how deeply and vastly your heavenly Father loves you - then every moment would be cause for celebration. ~ Preston Squire

Change

"If you want to do something you have never done before,

you have to do something you have never done before.

If you want to go somewhere you have never gone before,

you have to go somewhere you have never gone before.

You cannot do something new by doing old things. If

you want your life to change, you have to change your

life. So go ahead. It's safe. And it's also...about time."

~Neale Donald Walsch

The Plan

Just rediscovered this old post which for some strange technical reason never got published. Seeing no reason to let it go undiscovered I've posted it now.


I was talking to my friend yesterday about goal setting, success thinking and why so few people actually ever achieve a high level of success even when they've applied the Law of Attraction or gone to so many retreats or seminars or whatnot. We had some ideas but in today's Six Minutes to Success episode, I think Bob Proctor (best known for The Secret) really hit the nail on the head.

I wouldn't normally rip from Bob's work but this is such a nugget of information I'm going to make an exception. Of course, as he commonly does, Bob was in fact pulling his material from Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich, so I don't feel so bad. By the way, if you don't own Think & Grow Rich, you definitely should.

Bob has been in the Personal Development business for over 40 years and has worked with some of the real legends of the industry. In that time he's seen many, many people apply all the great advice they receive and still fail. Why?

They have goals. They have a vision. They have a plan. And that's the problem. They have A plan.

Napoleon Hill said that if your plan doesn't work, use a different plan. If that fails, attempt with another plan, and so on until you achieve your goal. This is where the masses fail. They make a plan and when that fails they give up. Rare is the person with the fortitude to pick themselves back up and start over with a new plan.

This is understandable as a failed plan could result in emotional exhaustion or financial bankruptcy. However that doesn't change the fact that Napoleon Hill is right.

If you study the great ones you will find they almost all had horrendous set-backs and hurdles they needed to, and did overcome. Marconi was put in an insane asylum for suggesting he could talk through the air with people hundreds of miles away. Copernicus was tossed in jail for suggesting the Earth was not the Centre of the Universe. Nelson Mandela was jailed for speaking out against apartheid. Donald Trump lost millions in a steep decline in his business. Edison failed over ten thousand times before he finally perfected the lightbulb. Stephen King struggled for quite a while trying to make ends meet, unable to sell any of his books and very few short stories until Carrie finally sold. Virtually anyone you can name meet failure after failure in the pursuit of their goals. What separates them from everyday people is they kept going.

Ever have a fly in your house that is trying to escape through a closed window? What does it do? It just keeps bashing it's head off the glass, over and over. Even when there's an open door just on the other side of the room? That's the definition of craziness, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If one plan doesn't work, try another.

Now, don't get me wrong. If you've made a plan and taken action on the plan you are ahead of 90% of the world. You are to be congratulated for most people don't even know what it is they truly want out of life, let alone has a plan for how to accomplish it. But don't stop. If the plan failed, try again, and again. There's no such thing as failure as long as you've learned from your mistakes. You're just one step closer to your goal.

If you've gone bankrupt, well, welcome to the club. Many successful business owners had previous businesses that went bankrupt. If you've had a failed relationship with someone you truly love, same thing. Almost everyone does at some point. You learn and you move on.

"Every time you want something and achieve vibrational harmony with it and allow it to come to you, you not only gain the satisfaction of having accomplished your desire, you also gain a whole new perspective from which to desire." -- Abraham (Esther Hicks)

The great thing about that quote from Abraham is that it can still be true even when you fail. For example, if you get married to someone and then later decide that person was not right for you, or that business was not right for you or that job was not right for you or whatever you now have a clearer idea of what it is that truly makes you happy. So much of life is learning. Discovering what makes us happy.

From a Christian perspective, God often blocks us from going down the wrong path. Joel Osteen (Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day) said when his church went to buy a larger plot of land to build on, twice the land they were going for was unfairly sold out from under them. He was convinced the Devil was working to thwart them but in truth, God knew they were thinking too small. Instead they bought a sports dome for their congregation and fill it weekly.
Now obviously failure doesn't make us happy but as long as you learn from it and move on it does bring us closer, and in closer alignment with what does. So remember, it's not the plan that matters. It's not even the goal really, it's how that plan and goal will ultimately make us feel. Keep that feeling of bliss in mind, always. The plan can change, even the goal might change but you should always keep moving towards that which makes you truly happy. And if what your doing now isn't working, isn't it time for a change?

Habits

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."




— Aristotle: was a Greek philosopher
 
Successful people make a habit out of things that most of us seek to avoid.  Are your daily habits helping or hindering you?

It Starts with You

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."  ~ Napoleon Hill

Napolean Hill spent his whole life interviewing the greatest, most successful people of his day.  He distilled those traits that 'successful' people had, that other's lacked in his immortal work 'Think and Grow Rich'.  But the essence of what he discovered is contained in those ten words.

Love

"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity."

— Benjamin Franklin: Founding Father of the United States of America

 

To often we get caught up in one-ups-man-ship, making ourselves 'right' and others 'wrong', holding grudges, judging others, etc., etc.

 

We did not come here for that.  We were born out of Eternal Love to Love.  Being true to yourself and being loving to others is the only true victory. 

Renewal

Starting today I'm going to try something new with this site (http://www.thecuphalffull.com/).  Instead of leaving long posts irregularly, I'm going to leave short, uplifting, daily messages.    They'll be posted on my Facebook page, Google+ page, Twitter (pending) and of course, send out to subscribers of e-mails from thecuphalffull.com.

Enjoy!

Love is better than Anger. Hope is better than Fear. Optimism is better than Despair. So let us be Loving, Hopeful and Optomistic and we'll change the world.

- Jack Layton - Former Leader of the NDP and Leader of the official opposition party in Canada.

How did Jack Layton go from little known leader of Canada's forth largest political party to being so near and dear to Canadians hearts in seemingly just a few shorts months?  Jack followed his dream.  He dared to follow a vision that very few, even within the NDP, ever thought possible. 

"Some people see things as they are and ask 'Why?'  I see things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'

- George Bernard Shaw

Jack understood that the world is a canvas, and we are the painters.  Do not seek to follow others but instead, dare to paint your world from your own heart.  Hold the vision of your perfect world in your mind always and follow only that. 

Yes, some will call you 'silly', 'unrealistic' and a 'dreamer'.  Jack Layton heard those titles many times before he changed the shape of Canadian politics in a way only he ever dreamed possible.

Rejuvenate your Body

Usually I talk about renewing your mind or soul but for today let's talk about the body.   

 Remember that James Brown classic, 'I Feel Good'? 

I've had that running through my head all day, and with good reason.  I feel great!!  I just had to share why.  My friend put me onto doing a 30 day body cleanse.  I had no idea what that was, and frankly, when I saw what she was doing (substituting shakes for meals) I didn't have any interest in joining her.  However a week and a half later and I was sold.  She's lost 10 pounds, has more energy, is more alert, sleeping better and in brighter spirits.  She even reported that her joint pain, which she'd had for months - had gone.  What is this miracle drug I wondered?  It's no drug at all, merely a choice to provide your body with all the minerals and nutrients it needs and forgo the toxins we usually choose to consume for short term pleasure.

When I started, I knew there would be an adjustment period, caffine headaches, hunger, tireness.  However, to my surprise I barely had any caffine withdrawl and only mild hunger.  By the third day, I was walking into a gas store filled with the usual assortment of candy bars, potato chips, Tim Hortons and instead of craving them, I felt disgusted.  'No wonder North American's are so overweight! There's sugar everywhere you look,' I thought to my own surprise.  I did have quite a bit of tireness at first but when my counsultant realized I was still hitting the weight room in the gym everyday (I don't really need to lose weight... OK maybe an inch), they adjusted my plan and I felt fine after that.

And now, after a week - I FEEL GOOD! Just Like I Knew I Would. I Feel Good. Just Like I Knew I Would Now. So Good, So Good, I Got You.    More energy, more alertness, I was practically bouncing off the walls this morning, singing and dancing - without even a sip of coffee!

Can't say if I lost weight, as I'm actively trying to put on muscle mass (which weights more) but I'll let you know if my pants start to become looser. 

 

For more information on body cleansing click here.

Prosperity Thinking

It's been a while since I've last posted. Normally that's a sign I'm off my game and not focused. However, this time it's the exact opposite. I've been so focused on what I'm doing; coaching materials, writing my e-book, working other programs, building relationships and going on vacation, that blogging continually falls off the bottom of the 'To-do' list.


Usually I do post from work, however, my work schedule has been very full as well recently. It's finally calmed down a bit so I'm back to blogging as long as that lasts.

I now have a back-log of stuff I'd love to tell you all, but for now, let's stick with what's current. If time allows I'll backtrack in future posts.

The focus in the coaching right now is on Money and Success. FINALLY!! After all, who doesn't want money and success? Well, actually, I didn't for a very long time. Some money, of course, enough to live comfortably but really, beyond that, although I had some lofty goals, I didn't have an innate desire for more. I had, and am currently working on breaking, a poverty consciousness.