As we grew up, many careless words made their way deep into our formative souls. Later in life they continually play like tapes in our minds, convincing us of who others say we are, assuring us of what they say we aren’t. Why do we allow the words and treatment of others to define our identity and predetermine our boundaries and limitations in life? How do we ever erase all of the painful and critical entries on our mental hard drive? Once we’ve heard them enough that we actually believe them, and they find their way down to the deepest part of who we are, forming the foundation of our psyche, how do we rescue the person buried under the ruble of other people’s words and judgments?

The critical words of others often wound our souls mortally and push us behind the walls we create for protection. We spend our whole life performing in an effort to give value back to our inner child who has been devalued a thousand times. Somehow it seems that in the end we must finally bolster our low self-esteem in something or someone much higher than ourselves. Once we discover this truth, we realize that the words and treatment of others can never define who we are or who we can become.

We are the lovely creation of God. His creation of our lives and his love for us defines who we are. He declares that we are wonderfully created with unlimited potential and we are passionately and completely loved. No one on this planet can ever take away our true value, unless we let them. No words can ever minimize the wonder of who we are, unless we believe them. When we realize this, we can come out from behind the walls we have built, because we know who we are and no one and no words can ever take that away from us. Come on out and make a life!

Sometimes, just when you think that things couldn’t get any worse … they do. The Russians used to tell me that Murphy was an optimist. That’s because he never lived in Russia. No matter where we live, sometimes life can be just plain painful and overwhelming … until we learn the power of perspective and expectation reformation. Many ancient writers and fathers of wisdom have warned us that life is just plain painful and we should be ready for it. Job stated that “man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward”. Have you ever seen sparks fly any other direction? Unfortunately, most of us have seen sparks fly in more places than bonfires. Homes, offices, football fields, and highways are just a few of the places where sparks fly. They fly in all kinds of relationships: husbands with wives, parents with children, siblings, co-workers, and strangers who get in our way. The sparks may fly upward, but they often bring us down after the smoke has cleared. Life is full of troubles, so we need to just expect them. Always be ready to work towards putting out relational fires, and strive to do more than just put out fires. As Smoky the bear warned, “Only you can PREVENT fires”. Remember, It’s easier to prepare than to repair!

Knowing that fires, breakdowns and troubles of all kinds are inevitable enables us to respond more rapidly and in more healthy ways. How often we lose our cool because things heated up at work. How frequently we are blown away by the storms of life because we weren’t prepared for inclement weather. Everything purchased will one day break down. We cut the grass, but it keeps growing back. We rake up leaves, but more keep falling. We wash our cars, but they keep getting dirty. The whiskers we shave and the hair we cut keeps growing back. We work out at the gym, but our bodies keep falling apart. The weight that we lose keeps coming back. We try to look younger but we keep getting older. It appears that all of life is a conspiracy against us, and there is little that we can do about it … except expect it! When we expect it, we take the shock and awe out of all that would normally devastate or emotionally upset us. Readjusting our life expectations takes away the element of surprise … for when you least expect it, we expect it, and that greatly defuses the potential life explosion and keeps us on our feet, in one piece, and full of peace.

Moses said the life is short and full of troubles and sorrow. Jesus declared that in this world we will face trials and tribulations, but we can be of good cheer for He has overcome the world. That’s the point, no matter how we look at it, life comes at us fast and furious and far too often full of pain, but how we look at it makes all the difference in our world. If we adjust our expectations to reality rather than virtual reality, we can have the mindset of victorious people who overcome hardships, rather than victims who allow hardships to overcome them.

If we learn to be thankful for all things great and small, we will actually be able to smile through the pain, dance in the rain, and make something good out of all the bad that comes our way. Sometimes, perspective is everything! On the outside, nothing changes, but on the inside everything changes. It all depends on how we look at it.

In Part 1, we acknowledged that there are times in our lives when we wake up day after day to go to work at a job that we don’t even like. We convince ourselves that it is just a temporary situation, but years later, we realize that we are simply stuck in the situation and have no other easy alternatives. In fear of the future, we often chose to remain in the present situation – in mere survival mode, rather than making a real life. The longer we remain in this situation, the harder it is to get out and begin to move in the direction of doing what we love and were created for.

TODAY is the day to Identify the Situation that’s hindering your potential; Clarify how it is hindering your potential, Quantify what it is costing you to remain in this situation, and Rectify it by examining all of your options and making a plan to change situation.

Take a few minutes to work through the following questions to be sure that you are not stuck in “Situation Deathics” . If you are, TODAY is the day to step out into your destiny and CHOOSE LIFE – YOUR LIFE!

TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY?  -  THAT IS THE QUESTION

In this specific situation:

*Are you growing? In what specific ways or areas?

* Do you have room to advance and improve your financial status? Why or why not?

* Do you feel satisfied? Why or why not? Do you feel energized or drained? Alive or slowly dying?

* Is it helping you to fulfill your life mission/vision? How?

* Is it helping you to achieve your life goals and plans? How?

* Is it positive and healthy for your family or loved ones? Why or why not?

* Does it fit with your beliefs, values and ethics? Why or why not?

*Do you look forward to being in this situation every day? Why or why not?

* Are you feeling anxiety, pressure or fear in this situation? What other feelings are you experiencing in it? What about the situation is causing these feelings?

* Is it worth remaining in this situation or would it be more costly to change it?

* Would you like to remain in this situation until you leave this planet? If not, when do you plan to get unstuck from it?

*How will you get unstuck and move to a new reality? List the steps and how and when you will take them.

IF YOU FEEL LIKE LIFE SUCKS, YOU ARE PROBABLY STUCK

Wherever I go everyday, I ask people, “So what are you doing with your life?” Many people answer, “Man, I’m just trying to make it.” When they do, I ask them, “So, have you figured out what IT is?” They usually look at me with a ‘deer in the headlights’ sort of look, and ask what I mean. After I explain … most people respond that they haven’t really figured out what the IT is. They don’t know who or what they want to be when they grow up. They don’t have a life mission or vision. They don’t have clear direction of where they want to go, or plans to help get them there. They don’t have a complete financial strategy, and they aren’t even close to reaching their full potential. Their ‘trying to make IT’ is mere survival, and their efforts to SURVIVE are keeping them from truly MAKING A LIFE.

So, how about you? Do you have a life mission and vision, clear direction of where you want to go and plans to help you get there? Do you have a fully developed financial plan? Are you living your passions and reaching your potential? Are you doing more than just trying to make it? Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. Break out, straighten up and fly right! Survival is not true life. You have been created for much more.

It is as if someone or something has blinded billions of people and sucked them into survival mode. Take a minute to think about the L-evate Life Law of the Blind Leading the Blind:

YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO “MAKE IT”, IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT “IT” IS

Friendship is a beautiful thing! Isn’t it? You may feel like answering, “not really, not always, not in my life”. Maybe you have tried to build and maintain friendships, and have encountered many difficulties.  You might be feeling that friendships cause great pain, they cost a lot of time and effort, and they are not worth it. It is true that real friendship involves a great cost and much sacrifice, but if we follow healthy principles of True Friendship, we will discover that the investment of time and effort is well worth it.

The Foundation of Friendship

As we consider healthy principles of friendship, we see that True Friendship must be built upon a proper, strong foundation. All friendships will at times be severely tested by winds of adversity, conflict, and misunderstanding, but if we develop and maintain our relationships with healthy principles, our friendships will be loyal, deep and life-long. The fruit, or results of friendship are truly wonderful and can enrich and change our lives and the lives of many hurting people in this world. Building lasting friendships requires sacrifice and an investment of time and heart, but the results make these investments worthwhile.

Many times, friends disappoint us and friendships don’t last because they are built on a faulty foundation. As we examine healthy friendships, we can see the essential values, or building blocks that establish a firm foundation of friendship. When friendship is build upon this sure foundation, it will last, and it will bring us lasting joy and greater growth in our lives. Let’s take a look at several elements of a firm foundation upon which a close friendship may be built:

• Kindred Spirit:

In order for friendships to grow strong and deep, there must be a spirit of unity. As two friends spend time talking, praying, playing, sharing, working, and doing things together, they begin to open up their hearts and lives to each other. They come to understand each others thoughts and feelings, and gradually their spirits become knit together. If this never happens in a relationship, the people may call themselves friends, but in reality, they are nothing more than acquaintances. True friends share their thoughts, hopes and dreams, and hurts and struggles with each other. They grow to understand each other and empathize with each others feelings. This can only happen when people are willing to open up their spirits to each other.

How many true friends do you have? With whom have you opened up your life and become one in spirit? Those who never learn to be open can never fully share their lives with anyone. They may have lots of acquaintances, but can become very lonely, even in a crowd. They build walls around their hearts, and their spirits are off limits to others. They will never be able to open up until they are able to trust another person. In order to truly build friendships, people must learn to trust each other, gradually open up their lives to each other, and become one in spirit.

● Deep and Unselfish Love:

True friendship must be built upon a foundation of deep and unselfish love. Too often, we think more about ourselves than we ought to and not enough about other people. We put ourselves first, we take good care of ourselves, and we desire others to care for us and serve us. It would be healthier for us to be aware that life is not all about us, and that we should love and serve others. This focus on self is not spiritually, emotionally, or relationally healthy for us. When we are growing as healthy people, the quality of our love for others deepens and our relationships improve continually. True love makes others a priority and is willing to sacrifice for others. It is always concerned for others and willing to reach out to help. It is patient, kind, forgiving, and compassionate. This is the kind of love that true friendships are made of, and this is the kind of love that everyone would love to have in their lives.

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YOU WERE CREATED WITH EVERYTHING INSIDE OF YOU THAT YOU NEED TO BECOME ALL THAT YOU WERE MEANT TO BE! BUT IT’S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO DEVELOP AND USE IT ALL TO FULFILL YOUR DESTINY

To really feel alive, we have to really live! To really live, we must have a life mission or purpose – it’s what we wake up to be and do every day of our lives. What’s your life mission or purpose? If you don’t yet know, do all you can to find out. Until you do, you really aren’t living and until you are really living, you won’t feel really alive.

A good life mission is usually much bigger that we are, but it’s what we were created to be and do. Here are two examples of people who had clear life missions and left a legacy:

I am not sure what the stated life mission of Jerry Lewis was, and I am sure that he made many mistakes in his life, but he did state that, “He was on a mission from God” and he raised over two billion dollars for “Jerry’s Kids”. That’s some legacy. Life mission usually is much bigger than our small lives and worlds.

In regards to life mission, this is what Mother Teresa had to say, “People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway.”

Don’t you think it’s time to really live?!

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Friendship Facts:

Essential # 1 – Unconditional Love:

What is true friendship? We’ve grown up in a world that understands so little about the qualities that build and maintain deep and meaningful relationships. We live in a world where love and acceptance must be earned, and can be easily lost, if we do not remain “deserving”. People all over the world are searching for someone who will really love them for who they are; someone who will see the good in them and believe the best about them; someone who loves them enough to tell them the truth, yet remain faithful to them till the very end. God, who created us, knows exactly what we need. He created us for relationship – relationship with himself and with each other. Let’s take a few days to look at some “Friendship Facts” – elements that are necessary for establishing and developing friendships that last.

Fact # 1: A friend loves at all times” – How simple, yet so profound! A friend doesn’t love sometimes, or even most of the time, but all of the time! A true friend knows you very well, sees all of your faults, and yet loves you anyway, expecting nothing in return. This is unconditional love. If we give someone something so that we will get something from them, isn’t that motivation selfish? If we love someone in order to get something, what would that be?

Fact # 2: This unconditional love that friends share enables them to forgive and overlook offenses, failures, insults and mistakes.

Fact # 3: Love should be sincere, deep, and from the heart. When we love each other with the kind of love that is sincere and that flows from the depths of our hearts, we will no longer have our lives filled with shallow and short lived relationships.

Fact # 4: True friends are honest with each other and tell each other the truth. They love each other enough to risk the relationship for the sake of helping each other to grow. They sharpen each other and speak the truth in love to each other.

Fact # 5: True friends do not gossip about each other or speak negatively about each other (slander) to other people. They guard each other’s secrets and can be trusted to keep matters of the heart confidential. Wouldn’t it be great to have a friend with whom you could share your heart and even your struggles and failures, knowing that they would be kept safe and that you would be loved and accepted the same, even after you’ve shared everything? True friendship is rare and that’s a tragedy. What does that say about us as people? Maybe we should all focus more on begin a real friend rather than looking for one. If we all did that one thing, true friendship would no longer be so hard to find and there would be a lot less lonely people in this world.

For thousands of years, knowledge and information was passed from generation to generation at a snail’s pace. With the invention of the printing press, came the “age of enlightenment” and mankind began to accumulate knowledge and store information. The invention and production of main frame computers and personal computers took the world to new levels of information production and storage. Next, the internet became an international information infrastructure that allowed something never before known in history – the ability for people from every place on the planet to share their knowledge, insight and ideas with others. All borders and boundaries were dismantled and man was propelled to new heights of achievement, as well as new depths of depravity. In recent years, the creation and development of social media communities has turned us into the first ever information multiplication generation.

According to researchers, Hal Varian and Peter Lyman, economists at UC Berkeley, the total production and accumulation of information is increasing 66% annually. This means that all of the knowledge and information in the world is doubling every 18 months. Just think of the ramifications of this for every industry, business, religious and educational institution! All of this new information causes astronomical changes in culture and in people’s views and expectations. How can any business or organization hope to compete and be successful if they are unable to keep up with this rapid pace of cultural transformation? For those who are unable to adapt and change rapidly, there will be a loss of relevance and strategic advantage. In today’s business environment, there are just two kinds of organizations – the quick and the dead.

According to a recent report from Forrester Research, 55.6 million adults in the USA visit social networks monthly, and the number of social networking users has doubled since 2007. Nielsen Online reports that social network communities are visited by 67% of the global online population around the world. These statistics reveal that the multiplication of information will continue to increase year after year. With increased knowledge comes increased responsibility. Therefore, we must ask ourselves 4 vital questions:

1. How can true information and misinformation be distinguished? Misinformation that leads to misguided conduct can lead to tragic consequences.

2. How much knowledge and information can people absorb and process, and at what rate?

3. How rapidly can cultures change without becoming fractured and damaged?

4. What kinds of changes must all businesses and organizations make in their structures, systems and strategies to remain relevant and successful?
It’s obvious that there are no speed limits on this information highway, so be sure to buckle up and share responsibly.

Culture may be defined as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, beliefs, customs, social forms, material traits, and behavior that has been developed and transmitted by succeeding generations. It represents everyday existence, or a way of life, shared by people in a specific place and time. Cultural Trends describe the general direction or movement that a specific culture is heading, and how it is changing and impacting society and our everyday lives.

The mixing of multiple cultures in the USA and in Nashville, and the warp-speed increase of knowledge and information is transforming American and local Nashville culture at a rate unprecedented in history! Possibly the greatest influence in the formation of cultural trends today is Social Media. It is changing the way people do business here in Nashville and around the world. It is changing the worlds of marketing, publishing, music, finance, and every other industry. In order to remain relevant and maintain a strategic advantage, companies and individuals need to master the art and science of Social Media, while maintaining a proper sociological balance. .

Almost everything in life that is beneficial may also be detrimental, if not used properly and with the right balance. As with food, medicine, electricity, and even social-media, too much of a good thing might not be that good after all. Just think of it, social-media is a miracle, and at the same time, it might be making us social misfits. Never before in the history of the world could someone from Nashville communicate with people living in Shanghai, Moscow, Bangalore, and New York, and publish blogs that millions can read, all in one day. The possibilities of social-media are unlimited and unbelievable! And yet, the realities of it are unmanageable and unthinkable. For instance, Kevin Jones has 2157 “friends” on Facebook, 1243 contacts on MySpace, 738 connections on LinkedIn, 43 Fans on Taltopia, 32 followers on FanBox, and is connected to 7 groups on StumbleUpon, but he doesn’t have one real friend with whom he could share his true life struggles face to face.

Could it be that it’s much easier to make contacts using social-media than to make true friends in real life? Could it be that Virtual Reality has become an escape from real life? Social-Media is an amazing tool, as long as you use it properly and keep it in balance. The content shared through social-media shapes the cultural trends in society, but you actually determine what is shared via social-media. In the end, the power to shape culture is in your hands … take it seriously and use it wisely.

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Thirty years of establishing and developing organizations, training leaders and consulting around the world has taught me that Leadership is one of the keys to success. If the right leadership exists, the rest will follow. If not, the rest have no one and nothing to follow.

I have also learned that leadership is a lonely place. Leaders have to deal with a daily barrage of difficulties and decisions, a high level of stress, and a delicate balancing act that most people do not understand. Leadership is a subculture of society, and due to the extreme challenges, there are many casualties in this elite group, at both ends of the spectrum. Those who “fail”, and those who “succeed” in their endeavors, both experience life-altering issues and experiences.

Over three decades of learning and experience has also shown me that to establish and develop successful organizations and businesses, leaders must know far more than they do. Therefore, they must never stop learning, and they must build a team around them that knows what they don’t and can do what they cannot. This cannot be done without trust, empowerment, and a multitude of skills and character traits that leaders must continually develop in their lives.

To meet the unique needs and challenges of leaders, a nationwide (and later worldwide) group is being established – L-EVATE LEADERSHIP.  The mission of L-evate Leadership is to provide:

-         A safe place for leaders to gather, who understand each other’s worlds, and can be an encouragement to each other.

-         A platform for continual learning from leadership experts and consultants, and also from many other leaders who have experienced the myriad of issues that others are facing in their businesses and organizations.

-         A resource and network of leaders and business owners who can serve to meet each other’s unique and timely needs during various stages of their business and organizational development.

In various locations around the country, L-evate Leadership Groups have begun, and we are inviting those who are CEO’s or hold other executive management positions, business owners, or those who are in leadership positions in profit or non-profit organizations, to attend one of these groups. Others who have already joined a group have expressed that they have finally found a place where they can unwind with others who understand the issues of their world, and a way to maximize their learning, growth and networking.

Each L-evate Leadership Group meets once or twice a month from 6:30 – 8:00 PM. We usually meet in a private room in a restaurant, with the following schedule:

6:30 – 7:00 Unwind with food, drinks, and conversation

7:00 – 7:20 L-evate Leadership Training Topic (each topic is taught by a consultant, with materials provided for further reading and study).

7:20 – 7:50 Training Topic Discussion – Cross Mentoring (Just imagine how much we all can learn in a room filled with leaders and business owners who represent over 200 years of experience).

7:50 – 8:00 Business Presentation (Each company or organization represented gets a chance to present themselves to the others, one company per group meeting, as scheduled).

8:00 – Those who desire, can remain longer, for further discussion and networking

Schedule for May – July, 2010:

▪ May 5 at Taylor’s in Williamstown, NJ

▪ May 19 at Taylor’s in Williamstown, NJ

▪ May 25 at Merchants in Nashville, TN

▪ June 10 at Merchants in Nashville, TN

▪ June 16 and 30 at Taylor’s in Williamstown, NJ

▪ July 9 and 20 at Merchants in Nashville, TN

▪ July 21 at Taylor’s in Williamstown, NJ

► See attached file of the L-evate List of over 200 Training Topics and feel free to let us know which 10 topics most interest you in your present stage of organizational development.

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