Our mind is the control tower of our life. Whatever happens in our life starts right here. And I don’t think you should ever live to the point you think, well, I’ve reached it now. Then what do you do?   You just die.

Sometimes I have to stop and pinch myself when I think about how blessed I am to have such a great family. It is really hard to even communicated. There is nothing more important on this planet to me than the people you see in the picture above.

Most of them will probably say I was the “black sheep” of the group, but I hope they will also tell you that I love each of them dearly and will be there to support them anyway I can and every way I can.

However your family doesn’t control your personal success or failure in life.
The personal decisions you make and the actions you take ultimately control your path. It comes back to the person in the mirror.

I believe their are 7 Key areas to success in life, and really nothing else matters. Life is to be lived constantly striving, growing, and attempting to get better in all 7 key areas of life. Some people are great in a couple and lousy in the other five. Lousy not by my standards, but by there own.

So the one of the secrets in to be in a constant state of improvement and not escapism. Many people try to avoid the important parts of life and distract themselves with the frivolous.

Anyone who tries can Get Better

Some people don’t realize that money is dangerous. Somebody says, well what could be dangerous about money? Money is going to make you more of what you already are.

A person who’s willing to just take it easy and do whatever comes natural, won’t have any real goals in life, won’t strive for anything, and I think part of the reason for that is that people are lazy, many too lazy to think for themselves.

They want the easy way out. They don’t believe that they can accomplish anything in life. They don’t have a sense of purpose, they have no goals.

They don’t know how to set goals in their life. And what they do is, they waste a great deal of their life because they have no sense of direction and they just settle for whatever comes their way. And, often times, thinking
that they can’t do any better and looking around at what other people are doing and thinking well, I’m as good as they are. And they miss life, settling
for less than their best. –

Don’t Compare Yourself with Other People

Why do you think so many people do that? Why are they so willing to
settle for less than God’s best?- Well I think they don’t really believe that they can achieve and accomplish much. They look around and see what other people are doing and they think, well, I’m as well off as they are,but that’s not the issue.

The issue is, what is the will of God for my life? What could I accomplish?
Why am I here? What is the plan for my life?

What could I achieve if I really and truly set my mind to do it? And I think sometimes it’s just pure laziness that people don’t have a sense of direction.

But, they don’t want to do anything else and it’s a tragedy that a person can live out their life with gifts and skills and abilities and talents that God’s given them and just settle for doing whatever comes natural. Ignoring that they have been equipped with talents and skills to fulfill their purpose.

What are some of the warning signs that we are living a ‘settled for’ life?- I think number one there’s no progress in life. Not making any progress financially,in relationships, in your career. Things are just still the status quo. And you’re sort of running around in circles. We join the “Thank God it is Friday Club” wasting time watching NetFlix and living from one weekend to the other.

I think people who do that, they’ve settled for far less than what was planned for their life.. I believe we are called to be courageous because we’ll all face times in life and situations and circumstances that it takes more than just the desire, it takes courage. Many people operate on the basis of fear,on the basis of what other people think. Here is a clue that we share quite often in our motivational seminars

“People aren’t thinking about


you, they are too worried,


wondering what you are


thinking about them”

We should operate from a state of courage. Courage to say no when we ought to say no. Courage to say yes when we should say yes. So what kind of courage do you have? Is yours sort of floating between depending on the situation? Or do you know the difference between right and wrong for your life? And you’ve made up your mind.

Our mind is the control tower of our life. Whatever happens in our
life starts right here. All of our decisions are there. And the truth is, whatever we are today is the result of what we’ve been thinking about the years leading up to today, right now, this time and place in our life.

This quote from the great Zig Ziglar says it best, if you want to break out and start moving forward in life.

A cassette tape I heard when I was twenty years old with this quote, had a profound effect on me, and set me on a new direction in my life that I never could have imagined at the time. The complete story is here.

SELF-TALK PROGRAMS OUR

MINDS, WE SPEAK OUR

WORLD INTO EXISTENCE

The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So if you don’t like what’s going on around you maybe you should ask yourself the question,”What am I thinking about?”


What do I think about myself,what do I think about other people? Because what we think about is really what controls us. For example, our relationship to God, our relationship to each other,our sense of focus & direction in life, whatever we accomplish, our failures in life. All of that is a result of the way we think.

And often times we forget that, that our mind is the control tower. That everything else is a result of how we think. And we can’t control everybody else and control all of our circumstances,but we are going to
respond to circumstances in one way or the other. And so, when I think
about how this affects us, I think about the fact that many people are where they are because of wrong thinking. And so they don’t like where they are.

Other folks are where they are because of right thinking,because they’ve been thinking the right way. What you have to ask is this,what is it that determines what I think? This mind of yours controls everything else in your life.

You say, well what about all the other parts of my life? We respond to the way we think. And so if we think right we’re going to have one response.

We think wrongly, we’re going to have another. Very important that we
understand how that works. So this requires me to understand how to control my thoughts. If I want to think right, everyday I try to have a flow of thankfulness running through my mind. I am so thankful that years ago, developed the process to learn how to consciously, daily, program my mind for success in all of the 7 key areas of life.

We all have so much to be thankful for if we just take the time to stop and think about it, don’t we?

The older people become the more they attempt to justify their lack of happiness and accomplishments. So many people need to stop and realize that today really is the first day of the rest of your life. God is not done with you yet!

Stop making excuse and move forward in the purpose you where put on this planet to begin. Stop lieing to yourself, saying things like, I just never had the opportunity or I just never will be that,or I’m just this and I’m not that. This is why people who are very beautiful can think they’re ugly. And people who are very skinny can think they’re fat. And they refuse to eat because they think,they look in the mirror and they don’t see what’s reality.

You must control your own thoughts, and that starts with controlling your self-talk. This is the book we have been recommending to our students and clients for over twenty years. It is great, and can’t recommend it highly enough.

Your mind has been

Programmed by Authority

Figures

And so your mind controls every aspect of your life. In fact, what you think
determines how you live. What you think determines your relationships with family, co-workers or staff members. and everyone in your life.

Many people start out in life defeated because of the influence of their parents,their grandparents, that tell them they’ll never amount to anything. Or this is wrong with them, or that’s wrong with them. And as a result, they go through life what, having heard,written in their minds, programmed in their subconscious mind.

If my mama said it, my daddy said it and my grandmother said it,
it must be true, therefore. And oftentimes, good people are ruined as a result of what they have been taught or what they’ve heard from someone that they value very highly. That our love and desire for material things can cause us to miss the most important things in life.

I accept up to two speaking events here in Atlanta every month. I speak for all types of organizations. I do a training called Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity where I prove to people they are who they are based upon who they thought they were as a 12 year old child, and how they can start that day and consciously reprogram their minds for success and become whatever they decide to be.

This training is powerful, because it really gets down to where the rubber hits the road. We cannot make lasting changes with faulty programming. This is one of the most requested topics I have from companies and organizations that I speak for.

Money Will Only Make You

More of What You Already Are

People don’t realize that money is dangerous, because it can destroy ambition. Somebody says, well what could be dangerous about money? It’s what it does. It’s the attitude people have, that if I have enough money I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do, marry who I want to marry,
wear what I want to wear,drive what I want to drive, live where I want to live,eat whatever I want to eat and on and on and on it goes. And all of that is true, I have had money and I have been broke, having money is better.

While all of that is true about what money can do,but that doesn’t satisfy you. But think about this, you can have all the money in the world you want if you don’t have good health,you can’t buy it. If you don’t have anybody to love, you can’t buy it. If you don’t have anyone who loves you, you can’t buy it.

In other words, you can’t buy peace, joy, happiness,contentment and you certainly cannot buy eternal life. Money can do some things, it can do many good things in the right hands. But it can’t satisfy the longing of your soul.

It can’t satisfy the longing of your heart. And when I think about the
future and I think about all the possibilities and living in this age of techology. I mean, we can learn so much and all of the information’s right at our fingertips,and the opportunities we have.

I would hate to think I’d reached my full potential, no. And I don’t think you should ever live to the point you think well, I’ve reached it now. Then what do you do?

Never Stop Becoming Self-

Educated on all Aspects of Life

that Matter

I think many people die early because they limit what their potential is. Keep learning. When you cease to learn, you cease to grow. When you cease to learn,you sort of begin to decay a little bit. You are to learn to how to stay healthy. And you say well, how do I do that?

Well, the proper diet and exercise and rest,that’s part of it. In other words, we’re not healthy by accident. It’s by learning some key things in life that really make a difference. Stop wasting time watching worthless cat videos online, and spend your time putting together game plans for your life for what really matters!

* Family Relationships
* Optimum Health
* Financial Independence

and the list goes on and on. There are 7 Critcal areas of life. spiritual, mental, social, financial, career, family, health. Focus in these 7 areas
and leave the cat videos to everyone else. Yes there we do need to take out a small amount of time weekly for entertainment, and if cat videos are your thing, that is cool, but during your entertainment time, not your learning time.

Most people occupy as much of their life as possible with entertainment and it is such a waste.


When we keep learning something happens in our life. For example, you and I are living in an age when we’ve had to keep learning. Because when I was born there were no home computers that I knew of, in 1960. So, we go back and you look at your life and think about all the things that you’ve had to learn that your predecessors and your parents didn’t have to learn because they didn’t even exist.

The truth is we live in a time where are minds are not able to keep up with technology, which makes it even more important to focus on that which is important the 7 key areas of life.

However if you’re going to be useful and functional, all the days of your life you’ve got to be willing to keep learning. So I would simply say that a
lazy brain is an aging brain. You don’t want to learn, what happens? You start decaying. And so, there’s something interesting and exciting about learning things in life no matter who you are and no matter what your age might be.

The Real Enemy is Fear of

Failure, Fear of Rejection, and

Fear of What Someone Else

Thinks

Rejection is probably the most painful emotion most people feel. And the truth is, all of us have been rejected, either by somebody or some group or something at some point in life. And so the question is, how did you respond?

And if I should ask you well,did that rejection bother you? Do you ever think about it? No, it doesn’t bother me, I never think about it much. But let me just correct that. It does bother you. Until a person recognizes the presence of rejection in their life, and discovers the source of it,and deals with it, it will bother you all of your life.

Let’s just think for a moment and clarify what we mean by rejection. And the truth is if somebody rejects something that means they refuse it. If you come to me and say I’d like to be your friend and I reject you, what I’m saying is,I don’t want to be your friend. I refuse your offer of friendship.

And what does that do? That causes the other person to feel less respect for themselves, less worthy of themselves,and to begin to be self-critical
for the simple reason,why wouldn’t somebody want to be my friend? And so, there’s some basic things that are very basic when it comes to that,and what it does, it sends a message.

In other words, rejection isn’t just a feeling,it sends a message. When you reject somebody you send the strong message going straight to the core of their heart,you’re not worthy, you’re not fit,you don’t belong, I don’t want you. You don’t fit into this situation.

And anytime any body feels that,especially from somebody that’s very precious to them,or very important to them, it’s devastating. If you don’t feel rejected, if you’re not careful,you’ll reject somebody else.

But more than likely, all of us at some point have been. And what I want to show you is this,just because you think you have forgotten it, doesn’t mean that you don’t still have it. The question is what do you do with it,how do you handle it? And there are lots of ways people handle rejection that doesn’t free them of it.

One of the first things we do in many of our personal development seminars is true to help people understand that for most of us, their was a lot of rejection and negative programs placed in our minds by the time we are 12 years old by “Authority Figures” which are Parents, and the Society of culture in which we were raised.

I was raised in a small Kentucky town population 400. It was literally like Mayberry. (Any Griffith Show)

How much different would I be as a person if I had been raised by different parents in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Mexico City, or some third world country? What about you? This is how we start many of our seminars, be cause it makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

What I want to talk about is how you get free of negative programmed perceptions you have. There is a way to overcome that, no matter what it is. There are three feelings that are absolutely essential to a healthy self-attitude and a self image, and your own personal view of yourself. Your self-respect and everything else. These three attitudes area sense of belonging, I belong.

• I AM PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER THAN I AM
• I AM WORTH SOMETHING OF VALUE
• I AM COMPETENT, I CAN HANDLE IT. ( iF I DON’T CURRENTLY HAVE THE SKILL SETS OR MIND SETS, I CAN DEVELOP THEM)

If you don’t have those three feelings about yourself,emotions about yourself, you will go through life suffering and hurting. Healthy body, a healthy body is always important for the simple reason you fe better,you’re more highly motivated, you are cheerful,you’re happy, you’re excited and people like to be around a person like that.

And then when I think about our relationships to others. Without good relationships to other people you’re not going to make it in life. We’re not lone rangers, God’s made us to work and labor and fellowship and have
fun with other people.

Honestly at this point in my life, I enjoy spending as much time with family as possible. My wife and I have ageing parents and grandchildren. So we spend as much time as possible with them and all the family members in between.

MAKE WISE DECISIONS

Please don’t skim over this,here what I am sharing.

You can ask any 50 year old, what are the two biggest mistakes you have ever made in your life? How would your life look different today if you hand’t made them?

This is one of the real secrets of life that very few people talk about. One of the major secrets is DON’T MAKE MAJOR MISTAKES. I am not saying that you can’t recover from mistakes, but I am saying life is much easier if you don’t make them to start with.

Why would a city known for its red economy over all these years go bankrupt? Why would they go bankrupt? Unwise decisions that
probably started years before.

Why would a family choose to buy a home, house,that they know that they cannot afford? But they’re going to buy it anyway. Unwise decision.

Why would a person marry just for a sexual fulfillment? Not thinking about other things. Unwise decision.

Why would a person drink alcoholic beverage in front of their children early in life,leaving them an image of their dad sometimes being drunk,thinking nothing of the consequence? Very unwise decision.

When you think about the kind of life that you’re living would
you say that the decisions that you’re making are wise or unwise?And we could go through life thinking about all the decisions that people make.

For example, they stack up credit on their credit cards to the point that they know they can’t make the payments. Why do they do that? Unwise decisions.

Before you make any decision you should always ask this question. Is this the wisest thing to do?

There is always an answer. Is this the wisest thing to do? Whether it’s marriage, or whether it’s something financial,or health, or whatever it might be. Is this the wisest thing to do? That’s always the right question whether it’s major or minor. Is this the wisest thing to do?

Learn to Smile & Laugh

When there’s laughter and there’s love and there’s joy,your body is going to respond accordingly. But if you’re uptight and you’re not laughing, and if you’ll just think about what happens to your whole nervous
system when you can’t laugh.

And somebody says well,I don’t have anything to laugh about. Well, yes you do, if you think about it you do. There are times when we don’t feel like laughing. If you can’t laugh, I’m not too sure you’ve got many friends.

Who wants to be around a grouch all the time? Always frowning, there’s
always something wrong. And when you say, well let me tell you something good happened to me; I’m not interested.

Well when people have that attitude I believe your nervous system is affected, your whole system is affected. I think there’s some simple things God placed in our life and in the process of exercising them, we’ll live longer.

Now you say, “Can you prove that?”Well, so far I can. So far I can. My wife and I both have happy, loving, caring parents who are in the eighties, and the examples are endless.

I hope these 10 ideas have spoken to you and provide you some things to think about. I heard years ago the teaching is in the words. The words recorded on a audio or podcast, or the words written in a book or an article.
The teaching is in the words, but the learning is in the silence.

You personal silence that give you the opportunity to think, plan, grow and
believe in yourself.