Fast forward to 2010. I’m now approaching 50, the Internet is commonplace, Facebook is the way we communicate with each other now. I started digging through old friends and found Susan’s Facebook page…. if I’m to be really naked, a bit of trepidation came over me. The 14-year-old boy in me was awakened. Old feelings came up. Am I good enough? Will she friend me back? What if she doesn’t friend me back?

Now logically, none of this really matters. I’ve been married for 10 years, dated my wife for 10 years before that, so what’s the big deal? I realize as I write this, that there is so much old programming that still controls what we do from day to day. As much as I think I’ve gotten rid of my old programming, there’s still a lot of that old beaten-down 14-year-old kid that resides inside my heart. Fear. Insecurity. Self-consciousness. And you know what, as I think about it, I’m not positive you can grow up without things like that programed into you. You’d have to live in such a sanitized world. I think, that you would probably have no personality! Plus… how would we learn, after all it’s the mistakes, bumps and bruises that from who we are today!

So… what have we learned here? Well.. You don’t have to be a slave to your old programming. It’s a matter of recognizing when the old programming kicks in. Then you have a choice… change or allow the old programming to control you. Seems easy… not always so easy.

I do think the secret is in living in the now. It’s about being present, and about being aware of your choices and the fact that you’re making choices. You see, if you’re living in yesterday, or if you’re living in tomorrow, you’ll never be able to see the choices that you make today? It’s only by being fully present, that we can move outside of ourselves and watch the choices we make.

Now this choice was a fairly innocent choice, but there a lot of other choices we make all day long but are not so innocent. When, a car runs you off the road, often the first choice you make is to get angry, to yell at the other driver, probably make an obscene gesture, and perhaps use language you wouldn’t use around your priest! That’s a choice! Now let’s analyze this for one second… many of us drive and are kind of asleep when we drive. This applies to the other driver and to you! Had you been fully present, you would have likely caught the other drivers mistake before it became an issue. If the other driver had been fully present, they would have likely not veered into your lane. Your choice would’ve simply been to make a correction, and go on with your day. You would have been free to make that choice, not get aggravated and a very calmly look at this as another driver’s innocent mistake… not an assault on you.

We make the same choices all day long, with our spouse, with our associates at work, with the person we order our Venti Mocha Latte from. How do we control the choices? I’m starting to understand, that the secret really is being present in the now.  For only when we are present in the now, are we free to make these choices. This is really easy to talk about, but not so easy to make a daily practice.

Here’s an exercise I’d like you to try with me. When wer’e driving, let’s commit to being totally 100% present and really in the now. See how it feels to not be distracted by the music on the radio, by the thoughts of where you’re going, or where you’ve been.  Just focus on what’s happening RIGHT NOW!  How long can you do that for? Try to make it through your whole commute to and from work.

How did that feel? Did you notice that you could make better choices? Did you notice you could make choices?

I’d like to leave you with a quote from Eckhart Tolle…

“Forget about your life situation. Pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind–stuff. Your life is real”

Talk to me about the exercise you did above. Did you notice you can make better choices? Can use that in other places in your life? Imagine, being totally present when you sit down at your desk to work. Imagine being totally present, and totally focused on just what you are working on. Do you think you get more done, do you think you get more done faster? Talk to me!

Oh… How did things end up with Susan? She friended me back and we have been getting to know each other. She’s a lovely woman wand a killer artisan. You can see the jewelry she makes at her Facebook page . Glad I thought about it and made the choice!

One of the things I have had a hard time NOT noticing is that a lot of us end up where we are in life without a plan, very unintentionally.

For a long time, my path was very random, I would seize opportunity when it showed itself. I would start a job, get promoted a bit, get promoted again, and then get unhappy and leave.

This was a trend and a mistake many companies make… Many companies take their top sales guys and turn them into sales managers… This is often the end of the road for the sales guy. The sales guy loved being in contact with the people, he loved selling, now he pushes papers around on his desk and screams at his sales guys. It’s a sill trend and if more managers thought ahead they would leave a good sales guy where he belongs… SELLING!

So I ended up looking in the help wanted ads (In those days Craig did not have a list of jobs for me!) I found another opportunity and started the cycle over again..

I realized one day that I was in this pattern and needed to create my life on purpose. Since the accidental life is so common I decided I would share my thoughts and help some of ya that realize… “Hey…. this is not where I want to be. I’m not happy and I’m ready to take the steps to find out what I am really supposed to be doing!”

Your first tip… You can be or do just about anything you want to do.

The questions is…

Should you be doing it?

Dare to Dream

Take an hour today and make up a list of what you really dream of being.

I know this may be a stretch for some of you as I have found, many of us have forgotten how to dream. Let go of who you are today.

Just imagine… “if money and time were no object what would really bring you joy and happiness”. It could be a physical thing like a new vacation home in Key West, maybe it’s a new profession… this will be different for everyone.

Have fun with this exercise. It’s a small step, but an important step to developing and planning to have an unreasonably wonderful, joyous life.

Please let me know what you are dreaming of in the comments below, Lets all get wild and crazy and dream today!

I’ll start off…
I dream of living, year round, in my wonderful home in Key West where I am inspired to work every day helping my Clients achieve every dream and goal they have! I know if I help they they will help me achieve my dreams!

Trust is something that’s earned. It’s not bought, negotiated, forced, or connived. Once you forfeit that trust in your relationship, it’s over. You have to start at the very beginning to win back that trust – and even at that it may be a losing cause.

I was just reading an article and I’ll copy it here… I think it explains the trust issue as well as I could, probably even better!

This really is a hinge pin to the sale!

Please comment below and talk to me about trust.

How have you won it?

What caused you to lose trust in other companies?

Let’s learn from our and their mistakes!

John
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The One Thing That Changes Everything
By Alexander Green

One indispensable quality affects every relationship in your life.

It holds together all your associations. It determines whether you realize your dreams, both personal and professional.

And it virtually defines you to others. Without it, true success is impossible.

Stephen M.R. Covey is even more emphatic. He writes:

“There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world — one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love.

“On the other hand, if developed and leveraged, that one thing has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. Yet, it is the least understood, most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time.

“That one thing is trust.”

Simply put, trust is confidence. It is other people feeling good about relying on you.

And its value can hardly be overstated. Trustworthiness is the universally accepted test of good character.

When you trust someone, you have confidence in his honesty and abilities. You can delegate things easily and effectively. You can relax. You have peace of mind.

But when you doubt someone’s integrity, question his accomplishments, or worry about his agenda, confidence is replaced by suspicion and anxiety.

Take a moment and picture someone you trust implicitly. It could be a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a friend, or a business associate. How does this relationship make you feel? How easily do you communicate? How quickly do things get done?

Now imagine someone you distrust. How does this relationship feel? How easily do you communicate? Do you enjoy this relationship? Or is it complicated, cumbersome, and draining?

The difference between a high-trust and low-trust relationship is night and day. In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing and your listener still understands you. In a low-trust relationship, you can choose your words carefully, be very precise, and you may still be misunderstood.

Sadly, trust is at an ebb in our society. A Harris poll reveals that only 27 percent of Americans trust the government. Only 22 percent trust the media. Only 12 percent trust big companies. And only 8 percent trust political parties.

Personal trust is waning, too. Many people look back on contracts or commitments as something to negotiate. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Many (perhaps most) founder on a lack of trust.

We naturally gravitate away from individuals we can’t believe or rely on and towards those we can. Low trust is the very definition of a bad relationship. And once you forfeit someone’s confidence, it’s awfully hard to win it back.

This is particularly true in business.

We all survive by selling a product, service, or skill. Yet every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.

If trust is lacking, forget the other four. You’re done. The moment someone suspects your motives, everything you do becomes tainted.

That’s why successful companies make a priority of building and maintaining confidence. John Whitney, Professor Emeritus of Management at Columbia Business School, estimates that mistrust doubles the cost of doing business.

You may have the best product, great service, competitive pricing, mountains of supporting facts and figures, and testimonials galore. But if you don’t command and deserve trust, you will not enjoy long-term success.

It is never enough to simply invite trust. It must be earned.

In personal relationships, that means handling responsibility, proving your credibility, allowing yourself to be relied upon again and again. It’s not just about integrity. It’s about looking out for the other person’s interests as well as your own.

Employers build trust with employees by assigning them important responsibilities, giving them the freedom to make mistakes, and setting an example. Real leadership is about getting results in ways that inspire confidence.

In a world that changes as quickly as ours, trust is a critical factor. It is the vital currency.

Business consultant Tom Peters calls trust “the issue of the decade.” Trust makes work easier and more productive. It makes relationships stable and predictable. It creates a sense of community.

That’s why it’s crucial that we not violate it. Trust can take years to build but only a moment to destroy. And you may not even get an opportunity to try to restore it.

For each of us — and for every organization — trust is something to be built up, protected, valued, cherished, and carefully preserved.

It is the one thing that changes everything.

[Ed. Note: Alex Green is the author of The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters, as well as the editor of "Spiritual Wealth," a free e-letter about the pursuit of the good life.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

My wife and I went to Montego Bay in Jamaica, and stayed at the Half Moon resort. We had a Beach Front Suite, literally about 20 steps from the Caribbean Sea. % star meals, peace, quiet fun and relaxing.

One of our favorite things to do was a Dolphin Experience. We got to swim with 2 Atlantic Bottle Nose Dolphins that live on the resort in their Dolphin Lagoon. (They also had 4 of the most adorable Dolphin babies there!)

Here’s a little video of our experience!

Pretty cool, huh? It was so great to be able to just – exhale… We spend so much time as Entrepreneurs running and rushing, we really need to just unplug and ‘get the hell out of Dodge!!

I’ll share with you over the next few days some of my insights, and I had a bunch.

I did my best thinking at Sunrise. I LOVE Sunsets on the ocean, but Sunrise has almost a magical feeling to it, it’s so peaceful, so warm, it always inspires me and reminds me that today is a day fill of new possibilities, opportunities and blessings.

More to come tomorrow!
We be Jammin Mon!
John

“If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem…  and one minute finding solutions”

From what I have seen most of my Clients and reader spend 65 minutes finding the answer…. while watching their world crumble around them.

The following is from an e-mail I get Weekly called Doug’s Weekly Success Tip. Doug’s a pretty smart guy, I’m good friends with his Mom and I’ll tell ya, the apple falls RIGHT NEXT to the tree, Doug is one sharp cookie.

Check this e-mail out, subscribe to Doug’s newsletter and most of all, start creating a question friendly environment!

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Live the Questions

“Don’t search for the answers. Love the questions. Live the questions. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
– R.M. Rilke, Paraphrased from Letters to a Young Poet, 1903

Consider this:

Questions, not answers, are the seeds of success. Someone focused on answers says, “This is the way.” Someone focused on questions asks, “Is there a better way?” Questions force you to explore – to stretch, to learn, to grow, and to be creative. Answers let your mind go to sleep. You get lazy when you think you’ve found the answer. You haven’t. And you never will because things always change. To stay vibrant and relevant, keep living the questions.

For six years, a client of mine has been holding management meetings once a quarter to discuss stategy execution. Several years ago they asked me to help them change some things to make the meetings more productive. One of the most powerful changes we made was putting questions at the heart of the meeting. We boiled the entire meeting down to the following four: (1)What’s working? (2)What’s not working? (3)What could we be doing better? (4)How could we be doing it better? “It was a small change,” my client reflected last week, “but it’s made a huge difference in how we think in the meetings. We’re much more creative and exploratory now.”

Try this:

When it comes to your meetings:

Try putting questions at the core – like the example above.
Build in mechanisms that make questioning OK and expected.
Take the time to foster a useful dialogue around the bigger questions.
Be weary of people giving straight “reports” about anything – they tend to be loaded with answers that haven’t been questioned.
Make sure you end your meetings with clear actions and owners.
Come to the next meeting just as ready to live the questions again.
- Doug Sundheim

Doug Sundheim is an organizational consultant, author, & speaker. To learn more about his services visit him online at www.clarityconsulting.com

Get Doug’s book at Amazon.com -
The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy

“If you don’t have time to read lengthy books on time management, Pam and Doug have done all the work for you. They’ve compressed the best time management tips into an action-packed, easy-to-read guide. Now you can get all the good stuff in a fraction of the time!”
– Chip R. Bell, Author, Magnetic Service: Secrets for Creating Passionately Devoted Customers

* If you’d like to receive the Weekly Success Tip Click here.

Copyright 2009 Clarity Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved.

Followers are people who are interested in what you write about on Twitter (When you post something it’s known as “Tweeting”.) The more followers you have the more influence you can have! But be careful, there are dozens of tools that tempt you with the siren song of “get bazzillions of followers with no effort”. As you can imagine, no effort equals – Crap followers.

You want people to follow you be cause they care about you and want to hear what you have to say. This is part of the process I talk about where we get people to know you, like you and then trust you, it’s the process that takes them from Prospect to Client. And Twitter is a cool tool to do that.

Follow Chris’s advice in his latest post: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/get-more-twitter-followers-today He gives VERY sound advice

And… while your there… follow me on twitter! My handle is johnjaworski – pretty creative huh?

That’s another tip, don’t get to creative with your handle, the easier it is to get them to know you and remember you, the better it is for you growing your followers. While “sexywellhungdude” may seem like a cool handle now, it will be hard to convince people that you have anythings serious to offer!

Have fun, see ya on Twitter!

John

But… until you learn to be you, until you learn to offer what you only can offer, based on your own original life and business experiences, you’ll really be a fraud….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

Let this video remind you to be you. You are an original. You have unique experiences. Share them today!

Dig yourself…

John

It’s almost an Entrepreneurial pandemic! But there is a remedy and it’s not really a choice between doing a little or a lot. The answer is – “Both”.

I understand how you feel. You get pulled from every direction, marketing, sales, promotion, management, customers vendors, bills to pay, orders to ship… it’s a battle to find time to work on you business… not in your business.

But lets try an experiment…  just for this week.

Take one task that has been looming overhead. We all have them, could be a repot you have needed to write, maybe a lot of filing that needs to be done… maybe you haven’t been reaching out to your Clients and Customers the way you have wanted to… we all have a list of stuff like this.

Starting today, take that big task and break it down into smaller chunks… if it’s not too much, try breaking it into 5 chunks. That give you a chunk to work on every day.

If its a BIG project break it up into 10 or 20 chunks. The number of chunks isn’t important, what’s most important is that you break them off into chunks you feel you can get done in about 45 minutes. Don’t overwhelm yourself and try to cram 2 hours of stuff into 45 minutes. Be realistic.

Now look at your calendar and find 45 minutes every day that you can dedicate to this and schedule tose 45 minutes in… just like you would if this were a very important Client. JUST this… nothing else. No E-mail. No Twitter or Facebook or phone calls. JUST THIS.

Now download a countdown clock. You can Google for one but I like BlingClock Timer it’s a free download and very visual. Now set it for 45 minutes each day and work on the ONE task that you have dedicated that time to… remember… JUST that task!

Do this for 1 week and report back here about your experience… We’ll discuss more in a week about my results.

Oh… don’t do this halfheartedly… really dig in and give it a try.

No pressure… Remember it’s just an experiment. If it works… cool… if it doesn’t you ditcjh it!

Fair enough?

John

How we react to that fear is often the deciding factor in whether the change will be a good change or a bad change…

Check out this article by Doug Sundheim from Clarity Consulting. Doug nails it on the head!

“The things we fear most in organizations — fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances — are the primary sources of creativity.”
– Margaret J. Wheatley (author, organizational consultant)

Consider This:

One of the most misunderstood gifts that life gives a person or organization is a set of challenges. While rarely welcome, they serve the invaluable purpose of throwing you off of your game – usually when you need it most. They force you to stop – reflect – dig down – and get creative in order survive and thrive. You need challenges. They are the seeds of your greatest ideas.

The biggest mistake you can make when you come face-to-face with a challenge is to resist it. To beat yourself up for having gotten into the situation in the first place. When you do, you’re putting your energy in the wrong place. Instead, get curious about how you got there. See it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Talk it out with others. Don’t stay in your own head. Challenges themselves don’t determine your quality of life – your relationship to them does.

Try This:

1. Think about something you’re feeling bad about right now
2. When you think about this situation, what are you most afraid of?
3. Find someone to share your fears with. Make it someone you trust and who you can be honest with (This is an important step as your fears have a way of dissipating when they hit the light of day)
4. As you move past the fear, what do you see on the other side? (hint, your creative mind will re-engage and you’ll begin to see possibilities that the fear was hiding)
5. Pursue those creative possibilities
6. Repeat frequently as new challenges arise

- Doug Sundheim

Doug Sundheim is an organizational consultant, author, & speaker. To learn more about his services visit him online at www.clarityconsulting.com

Faith can be in yourself, faith in the universe or God… or even  faith in your business process.

Faith is hard to get when you don’t have it.

Its also hard to ‘teach” people to have faith, but I’ve found you can be coached into having faith.

You could hire me as a personal coach, and we can exercise that faith muscle ’till its big and strong…

…or ask your spouse, a friend, a partner (make sure they support your project first) to be a faith coach or a cheerleader. When you ‘re down, they encourage you to keep plugging, when your confused they help you de-scramble the jigsaw puzzle etc…

Teach Faith

Ya know one ofthe best ways to become faithful… Coach others to have faith. Find someone that is down on themselves and Coach them, be their cheerleader. You’ll be amazed by whet you learn when you teach! I  always learn from my Coaching Clients!

Sammy Hagar Teaches us Faith

In the immortal word sof Sammy Hagar in the song “Give To Live” :

” If you want faith,  just believe a little.”

Just for a moment…   suspend disbelief in yourself,your project and your company and imagine what it would be like to have your plan work…

When you look at the past, don’t focus on the down side… Ya know, all those stumbles and falls were just lessons.

My good friend Andy Jenkins of Stompernet tells me “there is no success or failure… only positive or negative test results”

My dear reader… life is a test, learn from it and then take action on what you have learned, tweak you attitude and actions based on the past results!

Sometimes it will be blind action, but have faith in the process, after all… babies have faith that they will one day walk like their Mom and Dad, and they keep trying until they get it right!

Learn from yesterday and move forward to day with fiath that you will have a test result by the end of the day!

Make it an unusual day!

John