Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

I think I have sent this verse out before, but yesterday I learned something new about it.

Meaghan was telling me last night that she learned that the word in Greek that was translated to seek in this verse could also be translated to crave.

Definitely brings a different perspective on seeking out our goals.

Do you have a craving for your goals?

Does your craving to lose weight outweigh your craving for chocolate?

Does your craving to save money outweigh your craving for some new clothes?

Does your craving to get smarter and better outweigh your craving to watch TV?

If we can find a way to crave our goals and what we want to become more than we crave some of the short term satisfactions of life, we can accomplish our goals and build a future filled with success and happiness.

One last point. This is an area that is a great candidate to "fake it until you make it". Find some way to trick yourself into craving your goal more than the alternative long enough to actually build up that craving.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Today we are starting off with a mid week toe tapper:

http://youtu.be/MSXlpGpepiM

Maggie picked which version of the song to send out…

I thought of this song this morning and was thinking that a lot of goal setting and wanting to be your best comes down to respecting yourself.

Having a respect for the unique, talented and special person you are and were created to be is a first step in doing your best to maximize all that you can be.

If you have this deep down respect for yourself, you won’t let others or circumstances get you down. Why would you? You are special and there is nothing anyone can do to take that away from you.

If you have this deep down respect for yourself, you won’t quit or set easy goals for yourself. You will push hard and set harder and harder goals for yourself.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Below is a story I found online about perseverance.

A great reminder to never give up and that no matter how dark things may seem at any given point, be hopeful for the future.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Things Change

Alex W. Miller

For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation day… was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, when my lease ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.

The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew my small university town couldn’t offer me any opportunities, I packed up my car and drove to Southern California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.

You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can’t control – that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life.

Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.

So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer – a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough… sometimes a little hope is all you need!

I channeled my frustration into a children’s book. Beyond the River was the story of an unlikely hero featuring a little fish who simply refused to give up on his dream.

And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just a lot of hard work and perseverance – I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The moral of this story is… don’t give up. Even if things look bleak now, don’t give up. Two years ago I was huddled in my car drinking cold soup right out of the can. Things change.

If you work hard, give it time, and don’t give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream… all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.

If you are going to kill time, work it to death. Earl Anderson

Earl has said this to me several times and every time I hear it I like it a little more.

When you look at how you spend your time, how much of your time are you killing? How much of your day slips through your fingers never to be seen again?

We need to find ways to stop killing, spending, and wasting time and begin investing it.

Invest your time in relationships.

Invest you time in building your skills.

Invest your time in working on yourself.

The second part of this quote that I like is that it involves work.

If you have time to kill, find something to work on. Find something productive to do instead of just letting those minutes and hours float right on past you.

It is easy to think sometimes that we can avoid the hard work part of turning ourselves into a happier person. We see others who appear to be not working hard but still seem happy and think it is that easy.

I’m convinced that most of the important things in life require hard work. So we need to embrace the hard work in front of us.

Make it a great week.

Jake

Bear with me a little today. I read the article below and wanted to share. A little longer than usual, but definitely worth reading.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Hi there, Chris Widener here. There are lots of things in this life that we don’t get to choose. On the other hand, there are lots of things in this life that we do get to choose. Our attitude is one of them. Nobody else lives inside our brain. Nobody else controls what or how we think. It is up to us, moment by moment, to choose what our attitude is. It is up to us to determine how we will look at and perceive the world around us. It is up to us to decide how we will react to the world around us.

My advice? Choose a positive, optimistic attitude! Here are some thoughts on choosing your attitude.

We cannot choose our circumstances. For the most part, this is true. We cannot control if someone around us gets ill. We cannot control how another person treats us. We cannot control the global economy. We cannot control the direction our society as a whole will go. For some, this may seem scary. For me, though, it is freeing. I don’t have to control my circumstances—running the whole world would be a big responsibility. It is good to know that I am not in charge of, or in control of, all of my circumstances. This dose of reality frees me to focus on what I can control: my attitude.

We can choose our attitudes. That’s right. We get to choose what our attitudes are for every situation. The definition of attitude is “the feeling or opinion about something or someone, or a way of behaving that follows from this.” We choose how we feel about others and situations. We choose our opinion about people and situations. We choose the way we will behave in relation to other people and circumstances. We choose it. It doesn’t have to be bad, and it doesn’t have to be anything but what we want it to be. We have the option.

The choice of a right attitude will significantly determine all future circumstances. Choosing to have the right attitude will change the world around you. This isn’t any sort of magic; it is just how the world works. Now, don’t get me wrong, it won’t cure everything and turn your world into a virtual Shangri-La, but it will significantly improve the world you live in. For example, let’s say that every day you go to work and gripe about life and work from the moment you get there until the moment you leave. Will others want to be around you? Will others ask your opinion? Will others like you? Will others ask you to join them for lunch? Probably not! But what if you come to work every day and you are the positive optimist of the crowd? Will everybody love you? No, but significantly more people will than if you are the office pessimist! Your choice of attitude will determine what kind of circumstances you get!

Ultimately, what kind of attitude we have is our choice. Nobody else can force you to have a bad attitude. Nobody else can force you to have a good attitude. It is simply a choice you make.

So, what kinds of attitudes make a difference? Here are five attitudes that will make you soar:

1. “I can.” This is the most basic of all attitudes. We simply must choose to believe that we can. In our house, we are not allowed to say, “I can’t.” We can say, “I’ll try,” or “I tried and failed,” but not “I can’t.” Telling yourself that you can’t, will, in effect, make it so that you can’t. But telling yourself that you can, will, in effect, enable you to achieve much more. Even if you actually only achieve 50 percent of what you tell yourself you can achieve, you will achieve at least that much more than if you told yourself you couldn’t.

I actually have a standard way of getting myself off of the starting block: I simply say if somebody else has, then I can, too. And if many others have, then surely I can, too! I have to be smarter than at least one of those people who have already done it. I have to be able to work harder than at least one other person. There has to be at least one other person who has come from more difficult circumstances than me. And if they can do it, then certainly I can, too!

2. “I will be generous.” Another attitude that will make you soar is being a generous person. The attitude (and discipline) of generosity increases your likelihood of success for two main reasons: One, you are happier about yourself, and that puts you in a state of mind that is prepared for successful living. Two, people pay back people who are generous. Generous people receive in kind, and being generous will raise you to levels yet unseen.

3. “I will make a difference in the lives of those around me.” People who soar are generally people who have the attitude of helping other people. Yes, they may do it for monetary gain, but they are people-focused. They want to change the way people live and make life better. They are difference makers all around.

I live in a town that is very affluent. Most of the people I know, work with and have as friends are very successful. One thing I can say, as almost a universal truth, is that, to a person, they are people who are not self-consumed, but who genuinely care about others and will do what they can to help others. This is what I know to be true about the attitudes of the genuinely successful.

4. “I am not easily angered.” Whether or not we get angry is a choice of attitude. We determine whether or not we will be angry. I have found that often I will meet with someone who is struggling with achieving something, and in many cases, I find that they are angry people. They have held onto an attitude that is angry at its root. When we take on an attitude that raises the bar on what makes us angry, we are positioning ourselves to be in a state of mind that is better able to live and work in such a way as to achieve success.

5. “I will look for the good in every situation.” This is basic optimism. Successful people who soar through life are those who are optimistic. They see the good, think the best and strive for greatness, believing all the while that they will achieve it because it is possible!

Where are you with your attitude? Do you have a good one? Why not sit down and give it some serious thought? Then, no matter where you find yourself, decide to take your attitude to the next level! If you have a bad attitude, decide to improve upon it by a couple of levels! If you have a good attitude, take it to the “great” level!

Your attitude is your choice. Choose wisely.

Have a great week, folks!

Chris Widener

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. – Richard Bach

I have been asked to speak to several different ISU classes over the last couple of years.

The students and professors are asking for an honest opinion about what they can do to graduate with the best chance of starting their life off on the best foot when they graduate.

The most important point I make when talking to the students is to know yourself and follow your own path.

In order to get what you want in life, you must know yourself first. Jim Rohn says that setting your own personal philosophy is the number one challenge in life. Setting your own personal direction and reason for succeeding is the first step and the driving force that allows us to succeed.

If you haven’t ever done so, I encourage everyone to set your own personal philosophy. Spend time learning and growing so that you can set your own philosophy from a position of knowledge and not one of ignorance.

And then you have to stick to it. You have to have the personal integrity to stay true to yourself and your own personal philosophy.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Below is another short story that I wanted to share.

The power of the little things in life really add up.

Take a minute this week to thank those that do the “little things” for you in your life.

Make it a great day and thank you for the role that you play in my life.

Jake

The Power of Kindness

Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile.

Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison.

He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.

"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today."

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said, ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who’s packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, don’t forget to recognize the people who pack your parachutes.

Below are some thoughts I found one day when trying to find some inspiration for a daily attitude email.

Two things to remember:

Don’t be embarrassed to share a positive thought about someone. Don’t let your own insecurities stand in the way of telling someone something that may just brighten their day.

Second, tell them now. Don’t hesitate. Don’t put it off until tomorrow. Tell them now.

Make it a great week this week.

Jake

A lady who is a good many years older than I tells me often of the aunt who was a mother to her throughout her childhood. ‘Auntie’ impressed her with the need to tell the truth–the welcome kind–and she would add emphatically, ‘Tell them now.’

My friend calls me on the telephone–sometimes to thank me for a note or a little gift, sometimes to tell me what my friendship means to her. ‘You remember what Auntie always said,’ she will say, ‘’so, I’m telling you now.’ There would be no way for me to exaggerate how she has cheered and helped me.

I was talking with a lady who had been a missionary for forty years, and I noticed that she had exceptionally lovely hands. ‘Has anyone ever told you your hands are beautiful?’ I asked. The dear soul was so flustered one might have thought I had committed an indecency. She looked at her hands in amazement. ‘Why . . . why no. I don’t think anyone ever has!’’ But she saw that I meant it, and she had the grace to hear the truth. She said thank you.

‘Tell it like it is,’ is the watchword today. But suppose it’s lovely? Suppose it’s actually beautiful? C. S. Lewis said that the most fatal of all nonconductors is embarrassment. It seems to me that life is all too short to let embarrassment deprive us and our friends of the pleasure of telling the happy truth.

Suppose the boy who does your lawn does it fast, trims it perfectly, and takes care of the tools? Suppose the clerk who waits on you happens to be the most gracious one you’ve ever encountered? Suppose even that your husband–when you stop for once to look at him, to think about him as a person and as a man–seems to you to be the best man you know? Tell them. Tell them now.”

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Thomas Jefferson

If I were to add to this quote, I would add “But when you do speak up, do so with patience, respect and positivity.”

As we face another election season this year, we must remember those two things.

First, we must not remain silent. Each of us needs to become informed and get out and vote. Second, we need to stay away from and not add to all the hype and negativity.

This quote doesn’t just have to do with the government though.

Tyranny can be found in many different areas of our lives.

It can be found in neighborhoods where crime overshadows growth and opportunity.

It can be found in abusive and hurtful relationships where one persons dominance over another takes on an ugly form.

It can be found in the bullies in the school yard, picking on the weaker kids for sport.

Regardless of its form, it is our call as people of good conscience to speak up. To do something. To stand up to tyranny in all its forms.

Speak up and make it a great day.

Jake

​It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want. Franklin D. Roosevelt
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​Franklin Roosevelt has always interested me. He was the President during two of the most dramatic events of our nations history, World War II and the Great Depression. In a wheelchair. If you ever have a moment where you think something isn’t possible for you, think again.
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​I found this quote and it reminded me of how the President can be an example and leader when it comes to taking personal responsibility.
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​Regardless of your circumstances and your goals, you have to take action and positive steps to get what you want.
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​You have to be willing to DO.
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​It’s not sufficient to want to lose weight, you have to be willing to do the work of dieting and exercising.
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​It’s not sufficient to want to have great relationships in your life, you have to do the work of building and maintaining those relationships.
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​It’s not sufficient to want a great country and community, you have to do the work of volunteering, voting and educating yourself on how to help our communities.
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​I once read a biography of FDR and came away with two conclusions.
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​First, FDR was an amazing man who made a major impact on the course of history as he led the US and the Allies through World War IIand the great depression.
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​Second, he wasn’t perfect. At first, his failures and shortcomings kind of bugged me, but then I changed my perspective a little and it gave me hope. Making a major contribution to mankind doesn’t require perfection. So, the just may be hope for me yet.
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​Make it a great day.
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​Jake