Now here's a subject I certainly know something about, although I have never really achieved any academic accolades. Heck I didn't even get a college degree after going in and out of 2 different schools over a period of 5 years. All I can tell you is that in order to become truly successful and continue to stay that way, your education should never end. Being an IT professional, I must continue to learn new skills every year just to keep up with the technology. One thing I've discovered along the way is that you need to become self-educated. There are many topics that really should be taught in schools but simply are not, or they get glossed over in a superfluous manner; Personal Finance comes to mind as a specific example.
Thank God for the internet and all of the information that we can get our hands on. The only problem with having so much information at our fingertips is that you have to sift through it with an eye for what's factual and what isn't. For topics that are widely discussed, you can read a ton of information and a core of truth develops and you can tell where the fringe information, that needs to be discarded, lies. The challenging part comes when you are researching areas that don't have a lot of published information. There isn't a wealth of information available to contrast it against, so you'll want to treat these subjects with a little more scrutiny.
We promote educational material and training curriculums at DreamOutfitters.com and I truly believe that the quality of education that we offer is quite honestly superlative. We belong to a community that is made up of the world's best and brightest online entrepreneurs and they have taken the time to build an educational system for continued learning in the field of internet marketing. It is literally impossible to find the wealth of information that you'll find within our community offered in any other single location. There are eBooks, videos, Podcasts, Webinars, along with well organized computer based training curriculums all arranged by topic for easy access. These courses teach the most vital information that you need to promote your own business ideas on the world wide web. There are courses on everything from internet marketing as we've discussed to sales, service and even legal to make sure that your business is run on the up and up.
There are also multiple brand new training opportunities presented live via conference calls and webinars each and every week. Everything from the very basic beginning methods to jump start your business to the super advanced what you might call "graduate level" courses that show time tested methods that have literally cost the trainers thousand of hours of their blood sweat and tears while they fine tuned their campaigns through a series of trials and tribulations. They share what they've learned with the entire community. As Jay Kubassek always says, "the rising tide, raises all boats." It feels really great to belong to such a community and I've learned so much in a short period of time.
The bottom line for today's post is that you must continue to be a student well after your formal education is completed. Daily reading, listening to audio programs, watching DVDs as well as attending lectures, sermons and seminars. This continual process of filling your mind with the latest and most effective "best practices" can literally save you hundreds and hundreds of hours wasted by stumbling through life by trial and error. Trial and error can be effective if you do not have any examples to follow. But why spend all of that time if someone else has already done it? Success leaves clues. Pick up on those clues and save yourself the trouble of the trial and error that has already been exerted in reaching those proven successful results. Study the people you most admire and you will find the golden nuggets of wisdom that they leave behind much like a trail of breadcrumbs leading the way to where they have already arrived. Don't be a follower, be a student.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Enlightenment
Enlightenment to me, used to be a search for something outside of myself. As a youngster I debated the merits of the church and rebelled because the various factions seemed to be at odds with one another. I witnessed hypocrisy, and diametrically opposed views facing off against one another with respect to who would be saved, who the infidels were and who would be chosen to enter the kingdom of God. It occurred to me that it was impossible for all of these religious points of view to be true, so I searched even further.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastianism, you name it, I've probably read about it. It was then that I started forming my own hybrid belief systems based on the teachings of everything I had read. I'd pick and choose the best parts of each, or more accurately, the parts that fit the unstructured life that I had chosen for myself. It was only later in life that I realized that handpicking values from a smorgasborg of practices does not a religion make. True enlightenment comes from discipline and introspect.
Enlightenment doesn't come from the outside. It comes from what's inside of us and is revealed through self-education, contemplation, inspiration and meditation. I've recently been reading quite a bit about quantum physics and the Zero-Point field. Dr. Wayne Dyer refers to it as source energy and Yoda refers to it as the force, while still others refer to it as the Holy Spirit. It is the universal energy that connects us all and everything else in the universe. It's pretty spacey, I agree, but the math works out. And there are a great number of serious phycisists who can support these theoretical axioms through their scientific experimentation.
Whether you find true enlightenment through the Bible, the Koran, the teachings of Ghandi or confucious; You must have faith and believe in it with every ounce of conviction in your heart. It isn't something you can turn on and off at will. It becomes a part of who you are. It shows up in your smile, the way you shake hands and the work that you do day in and day out. I cannot say that I am an enlightened individual by any means, but I continue to grow in my faith and I try to live a life more in tune with the harmonistic vibration of the cosmos, yes all at the same time.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastianism, you name it, I've probably read about it. It was then that I started forming my own hybrid belief systems based on the teachings of everything I had read. I'd pick and choose the best parts of each, or more accurately, the parts that fit the unstructured life that I had chosen for myself. It was only later in life that I realized that handpicking values from a smorgasborg of practices does not a religion make. True enlightenment comes from discipline and introspect.
Enlightenment doesn't come from the outside. It comes from what's inside of us and is revealed through self-education, contemplation, inspiration and meditation. I've recently been reading quite a bit about quantum physics and the Zero-Point field. Dr. Wayne Dyer refers to it as source energy and Yoda refers to it as the force, while still others refer to it as the Holy Spirit. It is the universal energy that connects us all and everything else in the universe. It's pretty spacey, I agree, but the math works out. And there are a great number of serious phycisists who can support these theoretical axioms through their scientific experimentation.
Whether you find true enlightenment through the Bible, the Koran, the teachings of Ghandi or confucious; You must have faith and believe in it with every ounce of conviction in your heart. It isn't something you can turn on and off at will. It becomes a part of who you are. It shows up in your smile, the way you shake hands and the work that you do day in and day out. I cannot say that I am an enlightened individual by any means, but I continue to grow in my faith and I try to live a life more in tune with the harmonistic vibration of the cosmos, yes all at the same time.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Glenn Beck's E4 Solution
This week I plan on spending time discussing Glenn Beck's E4 solution for restoring "American Exceptionalism". Before you start rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself, "Oh great... Todd's just another right wing wacko." Let me first tell you that this is not a political discussion. It's not about right and left, or conservative and liberal, or progressive, or any of that. This is simply about stepping up and improving the country we live in by stepping up and making personal improvements in our own lives. This will result in an overall improvement in our surrounding communities and the nation as a whole. I honestly believe that Glenn has actually stumbled upon something very important here (perhaps literally).
I've been listening to Glenn Beck on the radio for at least 7 years, probably longer. I remember when he was just a "Sick Twisted Freak" who harassed 7-11 store owners by calling them on the phone to play "Moron Trivia". But then he started his television program and everything started to shift. While his show was always dubbed "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment", I definitely noticed that he was moving more towards enlightenment and departing from his more entertaining whacky antics. Over the past year or so, I've watched him metamorphasize into an educator; an historian if you will. He started teaching us about the founders and I learned a lot of stuff about American History that simply wasn't taught in schools. But since I'm a student and not just a follower, I did my own research and I encourage you to do the same. Do not take my word for it. You've got to be self-educated, which means reading the books, and doing your homework. Don't take anything that Glenn Beck says or anything that I say for granted, find out for yourself.
Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way, let's get down to what's gotten me all worked up with respect to Glenn Beck. Glenn has announced that he will be embarking on what he calls "The E4 Solution." The four E's consist of: Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship. Three of which were so closely tied to the vision of Dream Outfitters that I was really quite intrigued. I believe that somehow Dream Outfitters and Glenn Beck are somehow connected and perfectly synchronized in time. So I had to find out why Dream Outfitters was missing a piece of the solution. As it turns out, we had overlooked Enlightenment, so I want to thank Glenn Beck for pointing this out so I can incorporate enlightenment into the Dreamers vision and mission. I guess I may have been afraid to bring spirituality to the table, because it is so personal. But I see now the importance of getting down to a more personal level in order to achieve success in life, in the lives of my fellow Dreamers and for America.
As the old story goes:
A man decided that he would change the world. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change the country. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his community. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his street. But, be wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his family. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change himself. AND HE WAS SUCCESSFUL.
AND HIS FAMILY WAS AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, AND THEY AFFECTED THEIR STREET.
AND THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE COMMUNITY.
AND THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMUNITY WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE COUNTRY.
AND THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE WHOLE WORLD.
The moral of the story is that change always starts with the individual. When setting out on our own E4 Journey, we need to take a good look at what is inside of us. And Glenn launched his campaign by introducing us to The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life:
1. Courage
2. Faith
3. Truth
4. Compassion
5. Friendship
6. Family
7. Common Sense
I'll probably come back to these at a later time. It looks like there might be a week's worth of material here and I don't plan on echoing Glenn's approach verbatim. I want to elaborate on The E4 Solution and give you my take on the four parts before I delve into these 7 wonders. So we'll wrap this post with this story "The 7". The remainder of the week I'll be discussing Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.
I've been listening to Glenn Beck on the radio for at least 7 years, probably longer. I remember when he was just a "Sick Twisted Freak" who harassed 7-11 store owners by calling them on the phone to play "Moron Trivia". But then he started his television program and everything started to shift. While his show was always dubbed "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment", I definitely noticed that he was moving more towards enlightenment and departing from his more entertaining whacky antics. Over the past year or so, I've watched him metamorphasize into an educator; an historian if you will. He started teaching us about the founders and I learned a lot of stuff about American History that simply wasn't taught in schools. But since I'm a student and not just a follower, I did my own research and I encourage you to do the same. Do not take my word for it. You've got to be self-educated, which means reading the books, and doing your homework. Don't take anything that Glenn Beck says or anything that I say for granted, find out for yourself.
Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way, let's get down to what's gotten me all worked up with respect to Glenn Beck. Glenn has announced that he will be embarking on what he calls "The E4 Solution." The four E's consist of: Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship. Three of which were so closely tied to the vision of Dream Outfitters that I was really quite intrigued. I believe that somehow Dream Outfitters and Glenn Beck are somehow connected and perfectly synchronized in time. So I had to find out why Dream Outfitters was missing a piece of the solution. As it turns out, we had overlooked Enlightenment, so I want to thank Glenn Beck for pointing this out so I can incorporate enlightenment into the Dreamers vision and mission. I guess I may have been afraid to bring spirituality to the table, because it is so personal. But I see now the importance of getting down to a more personal level in order to achieve success in life, in the lives of my fellow Dreamers and for America.
As the old story goes:
A man decided that he would change the world. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change the country. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his community. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his street. But, be wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change his family. But, he wasn’t successful.
So he decided to change himself. AND HE WAS SUCCESSFUL.
AND HIS FAMILY WAS AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, AND THEY AFFECTED THEIR STREET.
AND THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE COMMUNITY.
AND THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMUNITY WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE COUNTRY.
AND THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY WERE AFFECTED, AND THEY CHANGED, WHICH AFFECTED THE WHOLE WORLD.
The moral of the story is that change always starts with the individual. When setting out on our own E4 Journey, we need to take a good look at what is inside of us. And Glenn launched his campaign by introducing us to The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life:
1. Courage
2. Faith
3. Truth
4. Compassion
5. Friendship
6. Family
7. Common Sense
I'll probably come back to these at a later time. It looks like there might be a week's worth of material here and I don't plan on echoing Glenn's approach verbatim. I want to elaborate on The E4 Solution and give you my take on the four parts before I delve into these 7 wonders. So we'll wrap this post with this story "The 7". The remainder of the week I'll be discussing Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Goal Setting Lite
Wow! That was fast. We just blew through the first week of 2011 and I can't believe it's over already. I'm still writing 2010 on my checks!
This past week I talked an awful lot about SMART Goal Setting (maybe too much). Having said that, I'd like to share with you a method that works really great for getting the "things" we want in our lives. It's called a Vision Board and it has been highly effective for us in attracting to us the things we want in our life and it isn't half as difficult as SMART Goal Setting is.
A Vision Board is a device to help you keep some of your more tangible goals in the forefront of your imagination. It's simply a space to visually remind yourself with images of the things you want to manifest in your life. We simply cut out little pictures of the things we want and stick them on a board that we can look at throughout our day.
Creating a vision board is very simple. You can use a bulletin board, a white board (I like the magnetic white boards the best), or even the kitchen fridge to get started. Place the board in a location that you will see it multiple times during the day. If you don't want strangers to see your vision board, you may want to place it in your private bathroom or in the kitchen instead of your work place office. My wife and I have these all over our humble abode. There's one in the master bathroom, we still use the fridge in the kitchen and then we have a huge one in our home office (wait... I think we have two in there now).
Now comes the fun part. This is a little bit like scrap booking. You can cut out little pictures of the things you want from newspapers, magazines, books or whatever. I spend 75% of my life on the computer, so I simply print my images directly from web pages. Besides, Google makes it a lot easier to find images of what it is I want. For example, if you want to attain six-pack abs or a washboard stomach for yourself this year, clip out a photo of a model who is sporting the body you want to see for your own. If your dream is to travel more, you might find photos of airliners and cruise ships to add to your vision board. The more you can personalize these images, the better. For instance if you have cruise photos of yourself on the cruise ship, you might want to use those to conjure up memories of those feelings. The more emotional you make the images, the more powerful they become in the creative process.
We've used this method with great results in our own lives for things like cars, motorcycles, guitars and myriad other "material" objects. It seems to me that the physical fitness images are a little more challenging (at least for me they are). My wife still has photos of me and her stretched out on the beach when we were in our twenties. Maybe the key will be for me to actually put some "skinny" images there myself. You can use this method for anything. The pictures or images should be as close to exactly what you're dreaming of as possible. I've heard stories of people putting their dream home on a vision board, packing the board away for several years, and then realizing that they were actually living in their dream home when they unpacked the box and saw the photo of the home they have just moved into. OK... for those of you who know, that was from The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne.
You may be skeptical, and I don't blame you, because I too was thinking to myself that this was just a gimmick, but I have to tell you, it really does work. The more we think about and "see" what it is that we wish to attract into our lives, the more real a thing becomes. Have we acquired everything on our vision boards? No, but there have been so many countless items that have come to pass that it is scary. The washboard tummy is one of those more elusive goals. I also have some pictures of million dollar bills on my boards. I will tell you this. I am a heck of a lot closer to acquiring these things than I would be if I did not have a daily reminder poking my psyche and urging me to continue working out or creating new opportunities. OK, I've rambled long enough. You all get the idea. I'm going to start cutting and pasting some new stuff for this new year. If you don't have a vision board of your own, I urge you to try it. Use your bathroom mirror as a starting place. It works!
This past week I talked an awful lot about SMART Goal Setting (maybe too much). Having said that, I'd like to share with you a method that works really great for getting the "things" we want in our lives. It's called a Vision Board and it has been highly effective for us in attracting to us the things we want in our life and it isn't half as difficult as SMART Goal Setting is.
A Vision Board is a device to help you keep some of your more tangible goals in the forefront of your imagination. It's simply a space to visually remind yourself with images of the things you want to manifest in your life. We simply cut out little pictures of the things we want and stick them on a board that we can look at throughout our day.
Creating a vision board is very simple. You can use a bulletin board, a white board (I like the magnetic white boards the best), or even the kitchen fridge to get started. Place the board in a location that you will see it multiple times during the day. If you don't want strangers to see your vision board, you may want to place it in your private bathroom or in the kitchen instead of your work place office. My wife and I have these all over our humble abode. There's one in the master bathroom, we still use the fridge in the kitchen and then we have a huge one in our home office (wait... I think we have two in there now).
Now comes the fun part. This is a little bit like scrap booking. You can cut out little pictures of the things you want from newspapers, magazines, books or whatever. I spend 75% of my life on the computer, so I simply print my images directly from web pages. Besides, Google makes it a lot easier to find images of what it is I want. For example, if you want to attain six-pack abs or a washboard stomach for yourself this year, clip out a photo of a model who is sporting the body you want to see for your own. If your dream is to travel more, you might find photos of airliners and cruise ships to add to your vision board. The more you can personalize these images, the better. For instance if you have cruise photos of yourself on the cruise ship, you might want to use those to conjure up memories of those feelings. The more emotional you make the images, the more powerful they become in the creative process.
We've used this method with great results in our own lives for things like cars, motorcycles, guitars and myriad other "material" objects. It seems to me that the physical fitness images are a little more challenging (at least for me they are). My wife still has photos of me and her stretched out on the beach when we were in our twenties. Maybe the key will be for me to actually put some "skinny" images there myself. You can use this method for anything. The pictures or images should be as close to exactly what you're dreaming of as possible. I've heard stories of people putting their dream home on a vision board, packing the board away for several years, and then realizing that they were actually living in their dream home when they unpacked the box and saw the photo of the home they have just moved into. OK... for those of you who know, that was from The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne.
You may be skeptical, and I don't blame you, because I too was thinking to myself that this was just a gimmick, but I have to tell you, it really does work. The more we think about and "see" what it is that we wish to attract into our lives, the more real a thing becomes. Have we acquired everything on our vision boards? No, but there have been so many countless items that have come to pass that it is scary. The washboard tummy is one of those more elusive goals. I also have some pictures of million dollar bills on my boards. I will tell you this. I am a heck of a lot closer to acquiring these things than I would be if I did not have a daily reminder poking my psyche and urging me to continue working out or creating new opportunities. OK, I've rambled long enough. You all get the idea. I'm going to start cutting and pasting some new stuff for this new year. If you don't have a vision board of your own, I urge you to try it. Use your bathroom mirror as a starting place. It works!
Friday, January 7, 2011
SMART Goals Are Timely
When we go about setting our goals, it's always advisable to make sure we give ourselves a deadline in order to provide some urgency. Like using metrics to keep our goals measurable, giving our goals definite time tables is a way to let us know whether or not we're on target. If we leave our goals open ended, the goals may never get accomplished.
SMART Goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
By giving a goal a due date, we are more inclined to place a little more pressure on ourselves to achieve the goal. Without this, it is very easy to let the matter slide indefinitely. By stating that I want to lose 10 pounds by the end of the month, we set an alarm clock for our goal that will be constantly "ticking" in the back of our minds telling us to get off the stick.
Another reason we want to place time constraints on our goals is for scheduling. Organized folks should have their work planned out such that they have calendars with milestones. These timelines provide us with the structure to keep everything rolling along smoothly. If we tend to do things "whenever", how do we ever know exactly what we should be doing at any given time? Setting timely goals will keep busy people more organized and therefore more efficient in the long run.
If we want our goals to get done, we need to make sure we're SMART about it. If our goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely, then we have a markedly improved chance of achieving them. If we let everything kind of randomly fall into place, our results may not be optimal. A reminder that people who fail to plan are planning to fail is something that I constantly come back to any time I find myself spinning my wheels. If I have my goals in front of me, it's never really a mystery what I should be doing at any given point in time.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
SMART Goals Are Realistic
When setting your goals for the future, another very important thing to keep in mind is that each goal is realistic. This simply means that the goals have to be possible. They must be based in reality in order to come to fruition. Having said that, we now need to take a much closer look into what reality is.
SMART Goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
When I sat down to write the post this morning, I had a Deja Vu moment. Didn't I just talk about this yesterday? Well yes, and no. While contemplating this, I thought that maybe the creators of this SMART acronym were simply being slightly redundant in order to make the word SMART. But after a deeper considersation of how I can elaborate on 'Realistic' in a way that I didn't touch on when discussing 'Attainable', I decided to talk more about the reality outside of ourselves. So 'Attainable' was introspective and 'Realistic' becomes extrospection (which I'm not sure is even a word). So without any further ado, let's look a little closer at reality.
I believe that reality is constantly shifting; that there really is no hard, fast, rigid physical reality that exists outside of ourselves. I get this absurd belief from the study of quantum mechanics, but I'm not going to delve into that here. Let's just say for the sake of discussion that reality is somewhat illusional based on the beliefs (or perceptions) of the society as a whole. Your individual beliefs shape your individual reality just as powerfully as the concensus of cummulative beliefs. Therefore, it is actually possible to change our personal reality and the outside world's current reality.
OK, before I lose you all, the reasoning behind the madness of my last statement is this: Once upon a time, the world was flat. It was truly a reality that the world was flat because everyone believed it. Once it was imperically "proven" that the world was indeed a sphere, there was a paradigm shift in reality. Some may argue that this was simply because we didn't know the true reality at the time. But I can turn the nay sayers' argument right back on them and ask the question, then how do we know that what we know is the ultimate 'end-of-the-road' reality on any given subject? Man continues to explore the unknown and is constantly coming up with discoveries that shake the very foundation of our current understanding of things. This says to me that reality is indeed somewhat pliable.
Now does this mean that we can set goals for ourselves like, "I will learn how to fly without the aid of any sort of mechanical or external aerodynamic means". I still advise against it. While it may be realistic on some cosmic level over the next millenium of many men contemplating man's unaided ability to defy gravity. It isn't a goal that we as a society would consider realistic. Try to keep your own personal goals firmly planted in reality.
My final thought on reality would be that while it may not be ultimately as concrete as people think it is. The ability to shift reality requires a massive amount of faith. Perception is reality, or so they say. So in order to make a nebulous thing real, you must be able to "see it" in your minds eye. You have to "believe it" with every ounce of your being and then finally, you may have to convince others that what you believe is in fact true. Keep your goals realistic for you, love and believe in the outcomes and do not give up on them.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
SMART Goals Are Attainable
The goals that we set for ourselves need to be attainable. Otherwise, we're simply fooling ourselves, OR we're setting ourselves up for failure. The last thing you want to do is set out on a journey than can never be completed. The key to knowing whether or not a goal is attainable is as the ancient Greek aphorism goes, "Know thyself".
SMART Goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
It seems obvious to most of us, but truth be told, many people go out and attempt to accomplish things that they really have no business attempting. If you're in Real Estate, for example, you just might want to set your sights a little shy of becoming the next Donald Trump. Unless of course you honestly possess the kind of drive and determination that Mr. Trump has demonstrated over and over again in his life. The operative word in the previous sentence is honestly. You want to be as honest with yourself as possible, so that you know that your goals are attainable.
The best way to determine which goals are right for you is some good old fashioned introspect and careful consideration of what your abilities are. Set goals according to your current state of being, but please don't be afraid to stretch yourself. The best way to challenge yourself is to set a goal you know you can accomplish and then maybe drizzle a tiny bit of enthusiasm onto that so that it won't be a slam dunk. Challenge yourself, but don't bite off more than you could possibly ever choke down. You know what you're capable of, go out there and set some attainable goals so that you can reach your dreams.
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