What Are You Grateful For?

Most times we are so overwhelmed by the challenges we are passing through on a daily basis that we forget to stop and think and see those things that we should be grateful for. It seems everyone is involved in the complaint/worry game and we all fail to realise that things are not that bad for us.

When we complain and worry about things not working out in our lives, we tend to lose sight of those things that are happening, things we should be grateful for. To discover all those things you should be grateful for, just sit back and take a look at how the year has gone and you will see all that has happened to you.

When you look back, you will surely see things to be grateful for. I am sure you are aware of the people that are no more. There people will give so much to be alive today but it is unfortunate that they are no more. Is anything worth more than the gift of life that God has granted us the grace to enjoy? If this is the only thing we have, I am sure we all have so much to praise the Almighty for.

I can't begin to share all that God has done for me throughout the year but I am ALWAYS grateful whenever I look back. If there is anything I will forever be grateful for, it is the fact that apart from being alive, God is making my life count. He has used me to transform a lot of lives through this medium and on so many other platforms.

If this is all he has done for me, I don't know why I shouldn't be grateful to Him. I have always dreamt of being an impact maker and as it is true for all dreamers, God made my dream to come true and a lot of people are better off just by coming in contact with me or by visiting this life-transforming website.

Though the dream for this platform is still LARGE, but where I am is still commendable and I am sure I have a witness there. Looking at your own life, do you have a reason to praise the Lord? Do you have the reason to be grateful? It is when we are grateful that we receive more of what we want.

Gratitude is a principle that has being in existence for years and it is one that works wonder. So if you have always being focusing on things that have not being working, NOW is the time to shift your focus and look inward. NOW is the time to start thinking of those things that you need to be grateful for.
Today is a gratitude day and you must have a lot of reasons to be GRATEFUL! Testimony time... :)

By A Colleague
Adebola Oni
www.naijamotivation.com

Create Your Daily Personal Growth And Development Schedule

There are six personal growth disciplines you must develop if you want to achieve all that is possible for you. You can learn these high value disciplines through practice and repetition until they become automatic.

1.  Goal Setting

Every morning, take three to five minutes to write out your top goals in the present tense. Get a spiral notebook for this purpose. By writing out your ten goals at the beginning of each day, you will program them deep into your subconscious mind.
Goal setting will activate your mental powers. It will stimulate your mind and make you more alert. Throughout the day, you will see opportunities and possibilities to move more rapidly toward your goals.

2.  Planning and Organizing

Take a few minutes, preferably the night before, to plan out every activity of the coming day. Always work from a list. Always think on paper. This is one of the most powerful and important disciplines of all for high performance. When you plan out your day on paper you can begin to visualize your high value tasks and make sure you complete them throughout the day.

3.  Concentration on your High Value Activities

Your ability to work single-mindedly on your most important task will contribute as much to your success as any other discipline you can develop.

4.  Exercise and Proper Nutrition

Your health is more important than anything else. By disciplining yourself to exercise regularly and to eat carefully, you will promote the highest possible levels of health and fitness throughout your life.

5.  Learning and Growth

Your mind is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Continuous learning and personal growth is the minimum requirement for success in any field.

6.  Time for Important People in Your Life

Relationships are everything. Be sure that in climbing the ladder of success, you do not find it leaning against the wrong building. Build time for your relationships into every day, no matter how busy you get.

Action Exercise

These six personal growth disciplines will ensure that you perform at the highest level and get the greatest satisfaction and results from everything you do. Study these seven personal growth disciplines and then make a plan for how you can incorporate each of them into your daily life.

From My Mentor,
Brian Tracy

How You Treat People Means A Lot

MARRIAGE TIPS:
LETS TAKE A BREAK AND READ THIS STORY AND DRAW OUT SOME HELPFUL ANALYSIS...for ourselves

The mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is one of the most interesting relationships in marriage and family life. These two people can be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. For the daughter-in-law, it could be like gaining a second mother or it could be entering a relationship filled with tension and jealousy.

This story is a MUST read for every woman who has a son and hope for him to get married someday, and for the ladies hoping to get married too someday.

REMEMBER, EVERY MOTHER-IN-LAW WAS ONCE A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

A long time ago in China, a girl named Li-Li got married & went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her
mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law' s habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly. Days passed, and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse was that, according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing Li-Li's > poor husband great distress.

Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law' s bad
temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it! Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all.

Mr. Huang thought for a while, and finally said, 'Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what I tell you.' Li-Li said, 'Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do. 'Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, 'You can't use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause
people to become suspicious.

Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspects you, when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her. 'Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like a queen.' Li-Li was so happy. She
thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by, and months went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother.

After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn't had an argument with her mother-in-law in six months because she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with.

The mother-in-law' s attitude towards Li-Li changed, and
she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in- law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening. One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help again She said,' Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law.

She's changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the
poison I gave her.'

Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. 'Li-Li, there's nothing to worry about. I never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude towards her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her.'

HAVE YOU REALIZED that how you treat others is exactly how they will treat you? There is a wise Chinese saying: 'the person who loves others will also be loved in return. 'God might be trying to work in another person's life through 

Taken from www.talkwithcera.com

Zig Ziglar Biography

“You can have anything in life you
want, if you’ll just help enough other
people get what they want.”
–Zig Ziglar

Zig Ziglar is the world’s foremost authority on motivation. An internationally renowned speaker and authority on high-level performance, His I CAN course is taught in more than 3,000 schools; and hundreds of companies and businesses utilize his CDs, books, and video training programs to motivate and train their employees effectively.
As a sales trainer, he has lifted the careers of many thousands with effective strategies to not just make a sale, but to create a sales professional. “Selling is not something you to do someone, it is something you do for someone.” Zig’s Secrets of Closing the Sale audio training program is a must-have for anyone involved in the world of selling.
Zig Ziglar has taught his values-based principles for becoming a more effective persuader and person to sales organizations, church groups, schools, and businesses. And he has reached thousands more through numerous television and radio appearances and through his popular audio and video training programs. For many years, his Sunday school class held at First Baptist Church, Dallas, was broadcast each Sunday morning, via satellite.
Years ago, Zig Ziglar walked away from a record-setting sales career to help other people become more successful in their personal and professional lives. His background in successful direct sales has made Zig one of the world’s foremost Sales Trainers. His name is synonymous with confidence, motivation and success. A master at motivational speaking, Mr. Ziglar has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, Fortune, Success and Esquire magazines, and has appeared on the Today show, 20/20, 60 minutes and The Phil Donohue show.
Zig Ziglar’s unique brand of logic and enthusiasm are overwhelming. Just a brief exposure to Zig makes a fan of anyone. He has that rare ability to make audiences comfortable and relaxed, yet completely attentive. As an author, he has produced dozens of successful books, audio CDs, and video programs, including his flagship product, How to Stay Motivated. As a concerned citizen, Mr. Ziglar has been recognized in the Congressional Record of the United States for his many contributions to the American way of life.
Over the last 30 years presenting himself and his motivational ideas, he has developed a national following. He has grown from a one-man show to chairman of the Zig Ziglar Corporation, headquartered in Dallas, with a staff of more than 60 employees — an organization which is committed to helping people more fully utilize their physical, mental, and spiritual resources. Zig has traveled more than 3 million miles throughout the world as a speaker and lecturer.

Let top motivator and sales trainer, Zig Ziglar, help you be a winner in every area of your life.

November 28, 2012

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Zig Ziglar, an exceptional speaker, educator, and motivational trainer, earlier today.  He was 86 years young and energetic to the last. Zig’s values-based principles for becoming a more effective persuader and person are used in sales organizations, church groups, schools, and businesses all over the world.

Zig Ziglar was a popular contributor to our MindPerk One Minute Motivators newsletter. Of all the hundreds of motivational trainers out there, my all-time favorite, the one I have recommend to more people and organizations than any other, is Zig Ziglar.  Why?  Not only did he have great ideas and solutions, he presented them with energy, humor, and enthusiasm.

I’ve met Zig and watched him teach in person. What an amazing experience! A few years ago, I attended a live seminar that Zig had customized for a company. At the time, he was approaching 70 years old. I was amazed that he had more energy and enthusiasm than I did at 40!

Zig Ziglar has had a profound influence on my life and I thank him for what he has taught me over many years.

At MindPerk, we express our love, respect, and condolences to the Ziglar family. Zig’s message has positively impacted the lives of millions and will continue to inspire and educate generations to come.

Bill Mansell, President
MindPerk,Inc.

Stay Positive and Move Forward: Avoid Dealing with Mistakes the Wrong Way

Everyone makes mistakes and the busier you are, the more mistakes you will make. The only question is “Do you stay positive and move forward from life’s inevitable ups and downs?”

Here’s how you can learn to maintain positive thinking and benefit from your mistakes in the face of adversity.

This is achieved through the simple exercise of self-disclosure. For you to truly understand yourself and to move forward from the troubling things that may have happened in your past, you must be able to disclose yourself to at least one person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed for what has happened.

Stay Positive

There are two ways to look at the world: the benevolent way or the malevolent way. People with a malevolent or negative worldview take a victim stance, seeing life as a continuous succession of problems and a process of unfairness and oppression. They can’t move forward, don’t expect a lot and don’t get much. When things go wrong, they shrug their shoulders and passively accept that this is the way life is and there isn’t anything they can do to make it better.
On the other hand, people who practice positive thinking see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive thinking and expectations. They stay positive, expect a lot and are seldom disappointed.

Flex Your Mental Muscles with Positive Thinking

When you develop positive thinking and the skill of learning from your mistakes, you become the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move forward. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.
Two of the most common ways to deal with mistakes are invariably fatal to high achievement. The first common but misguided way to handle a mistake is the failure to accept it when it occurs. According to statistics, 70 percent of all decisions we make will be wrong. That’s an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70 percent of the time, and some people will fail less. It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. In fact, if this is the case, how can our society continue to function at all?

Cut Your Losses and Move Forward

The fact is that our society, our families, our companies, and our relationships continue to survive and thrive because intelligent people tend to cut their losses, stay positive and minimize their mistakes. It is only when people refuse to accept that they have made a bad choice or decision—and prolong the consequences by sticking to that bad choice or decision—that mistakes become extremely expensive and hurtful.

Learn From Your Mistakes

The second common approach that people take with regard to their mistakes, one that hurts innumerable lives and careers, is the failure to use your mistakes to better yourself and to improve the quality of your mind and your thinking.
Learning from your mistakes is an essential skill that enables you to move forward, stay positive, and develop the resilience to be a master of change rather than a victim of change. The person who recognizes that he has made a mistake and changes direction the fastest is the one who will win in an age of increasing information, technology and competition.
By remaining fast on your feet, you will be able to out-play and out-position your competition. You will become a creator of circumstances rather than a creature of circumstances.
Thank you for reading this post on how to stay positive and move forward by avoiding common mistakes in handling life’s adversities. How do you apply positive thinking in your life? Please comment and share below!

From My Mentor
Brian Tracy's Blog

9 Success Factors for Personal Growth: Moving Forward to Achieve Your Best Life

There are nine success factors that you must know in order to start moving forward in life.  Each one of these success factors has been proven to be critical in the achievement of the best life possible for any given person. By systematically implementing one or more of these success factors into your life, you can put your foot on the accelerator of your own career and achieve the best life for yourself.

1. Education

The first of the nine success factors is education. In our society, the highest paid people are those who know more than the average. They know more of the critical facts, ideas and information than the average person in their field. As a result, they can make a more valuable contribution in a knowledge based society and live the best life possible. They are valued more, respected more and ultimately paid more money and promoted more often.
The rule is that, “to earn more, you must learn more.” If you want to increase your level of income and achieve the best life for yourself, you must increase your level of intellectual capital and thereby the value of the knowledge component in what you are doing.

2. Skill

The second of the nine success factors that you can use to achieve the best life possible is simply “Skill.” Your level of ability in your field will determine the quality and quantity of your results. The better you get at what you do, the easier it is for you to start moving forward to get a particular level of results.
As you increase your skill, through study and experience, you get better and better at doing the small things that increase the speed and predictability of your results.

3. Contacts

The third success factor for moving forward and achieving the best life is by developing an ever widening circle of contacts. You will find that every major change in your life is accompanied by a person or persons who either opens or closes doors for you. The possibility of the best life for you will be determined by the number of people who know you and like you and who are willing to help you.
In order to broaden your network of contacts, you must network continually, at every opportunity. There seems to be a direct relationship between the number of people you know and how successful you are.

4. Money

One of the most important of the success factors, is “money.” Having money in the bank gives you greater freedom and the ability to take advantage of opportunities when they come along. If you are broke, or in debt, you have very few options open to you.
One of the most important things I ever learned in life is that you are only as free as your options. If you have no options, you have no freedom. If you are stuck in a dead-end job that you cannot leave because you have no money set aside, you have put a brake on your potential. You are locked in place and have no option for moving forward. You can end up spinning your wheels and losing months and years of your time by the very fact that you have no choice but to accept whatever is being handed to you.

5. Good Work Habits

The fifth of the success factors that enables you to get far more done in a shorter period of time is simply “good work habits.” Your ability to increase your ROTI, or “Return on Time Invested” can enable you to accomplish vastly more in a shorter period of time than another person who is disorganized and sloppy.
Developing good work habits requires that you think before acting. You make a list and set priorities on the list before you begin. Good work habits require that you consider the likely consequences, positive or negative of what you are doing.

6. Positive Mental Attitude

The sixth success factor for your career and life is to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals is by developing a “positive mental attitude.” A positive mental attitude is very much a decision that you make. Remember, you become what you do. If you engage in the same activities that positive, confident, optimistic people engage in, you will eventually become one of them and live your best life possible.
Anyone can remain positive when things are going well. It is your ability to look for the good in every situation that you see positive and start moving forward in life.

7. Positive Image

The seventh of the success factors you can incorporate into your lifestyle, and one that can help you achieve the best life for yourself, is the development of a positive image. People judge you by the way you look on the outside, by the way you appear. The fact is that you judge everyone else by the way they look on the outside, as well. Taking time to present an attractive image in your person, your clothing, your grooming and your accessories can have an inordinate impact on the doors that open for you and the people who are willing to help you start moving forward in your life.

8. Creativity

Creativity is another wonderful way to start moving forward in life and to increase the speed at which you achieve your goals. Creativity is something that requires that you continually look for better, faster, easier, cheaper ways to get the job done. Remember, one good idea is all you need to start a fortune.

9. Character

Perhaps the most important of the success factors to accelerating your life is your character. Self-discipline combined with honesty will open countless doors to you. Trust is the foundation of all relationships. When people know you and believe in you and are convinced that they can trust you to keep your word and do what you say you will do, they will feel that they are far more likely to get the things they want through you, to get the things they want, faster, sooner, easier and with greater certainty.

Thank you for reading this article on moving forward and living the best life possible. Do you know of any other success factors that can help accelerate your life and career? Please share your thoughts and comment below!

My Mentor,
Brian Tracy

Critical Success Factor: Developing a Moral Character to Achieve Greatness

No matter what you do, your ultimate goal, beyond what you are trying to accomplish at the moment, is to achieve your own happiness and become a good person. An individual can exercise a key success factor for developing a moral character to achieve the kind of happiness everyone longs for.
People are successful in life to the degree to which they can organize their world in such a way that they are genuinely happy. The only difference between people in this area is that some people are better at achieving their own happiness and others are not particularly successful. Some people make choices and decisions that make them unhappy and worse off than they ever would have been if they had done nothing at all. But always, happiness is your goal.

Strive to Become a Good Person

In his time, Aristotle examined the human condition and came to a remarkable conclusion.  He said that, “Only the good can be happy, and only the virtuous can be good.” This is one of the major breakthroughs in philosophy. Imagine! You can only be happy if you are a good person, and you can only be a good person, and you can only be a good person if you practice the virtues that are associated with goodness.
What this means simply is that, if you want to have a wonderful life, you must continually strive to become a good person. Any deviation from this course will lead you to lower levels of happiness and dissatisfaction. Every single time you act consistently with the highest virtues that you know, you feel happy and strong inside, your self-confidence and self-esteem go up and you become more effective in your relationships and in your work.  Virtue is its own reward.  It pays for itself in the inner feeling of pleasure and contentment you have when you live consistent with the best you know.

Develop a Moral Character

In order to achieve happiness and become a good person, you must know that character is the greatest success factor of all. If you want to change your outer world, you must go to work, like a computer programmer at a keyboard, to reprogram your subconscious mind, your world of values, beliefs, and inner convictions so that the person you are inside is exactly the mental equivalent of the life you want to enjoy on the outside.
Your reputation is your greatest asset. Your reputation can be defined as how people think about you and talk about you when you’re not there.  As you know from your own experience, when people talk about you in either positive or negative terms, and you find out about it, it has a major impact on your thinking and your emotions, either positive or negative.
Because of the Law of Attraction, as you develop a moral character, and live more and more by the highest and best virtues that you know, you will become a happy and good person. You must always strive to exercise this success factor and develop a moral character.

Success Factor for Greatness

If character is the greatest success factor to your life, the fundamental component of one’s character is trust. In relationships, trust is the glue that holds it all together. It is impossible for us to proceed in any kind of a relationship unless we trust and feel confident with the other person.  All good friendships are based on trust. All strong families are based on trust. And in companies, which are larger business families, trust is the fundamental ingredient that determines the success and prosperity of the enterprise.
The very best companies to work for have high-trust environments. Everyone in the company, at every level, absolutely trusts and believes that what people say is true. In almost every company of value, telling a lie can be a sufficient reason for losing your job.
The ultimate expression of trust is truthfulness. Your very best friends and closest associates in life will always be those who tell you the truth. The willingness to be absolutely truthful with yourself and others is the critical mark of a person of outstanding moral character. If integrity is the core quality then truthfulness is the most obvious expression of integrity.
Shakespeare said, “And this above all, to thine own self be true. Then, it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”  You must always be absolutely be true to yourself. This means being true to the very best that is in you. This also means that you always do your very best in every situation, especially at work where people are counting on you.  If the inner expression of integrity is truth, then the outer expression of integrity is quality work and quality behavior under all circumstances.
In Abraham Maslow’s studies of self-actualizing people, he found that one of the characteristics of the most advanced people he found was that they were extremely objective and truthful about themselves, about their strengths and weaknesses, and about their situations in life. They never tried to convince themselves of things that weren’t true. They exercised the success factor of character and “lived in truth” with themselves. As a result, they were able to live in truth with others.
Refuse to compromise your moral character. Refuse to pretend or wish or hope that something is not true, when in your heart, you know it is.
This means that you live in truth with everyone around you. You state your truth simply and honestly. You do not stay in relationships that are wrong for you, or do things that you do not agree with or believe in. You do not say things to people that are not honest and sincere expressions of your true beliefs. You adamantly insist on living in truth in every aspect of your life and strive to become a good person.
What are your thoughts on the greatest success factor of all? Do you agree that an individual’s moral character is important for one to develop in order to achieve happiness in life? Please comment below and share with others if you enjoyed this post!

My Mentor
Brian Tracy