1. Reproduce inspiring passages or excerpts.

Have you ever read a particular book passage that left you
feeling driven or inspired? This is a tool you should never
leave behind. Copy these moving paragraphs down by hand or
print them out with your computer and always keep them close
at hand.

2. Create a personal goal card.

Write – or use your computer to print – one of your most
important goals on a sheet of paper or card stock. Cut out
in the size of a business card and keep it in your wallet
or purse. For a longer-lasting card, use self-laminating
sheets from your local office supply store.

3. Put your voice mail to use.

Have your wife or husband, children, or close friends call
your home or cell phone and leave a message of hope, love,
and support for the things you are trying to change about
your life or goals you wish to accomplish. When times are
tough, the perfect solution will be just a call away.

4. Connect your goal with your children.

Here’s one that you can really get creative with. Begin by
writing your goal on a large sheet of paper with a big,
bold marker. Then take a picture of your children or spouse
holding the sign and hang the picture in the places where
motivation is needed most.

Tools in Action: A father wishing to quit smoking wrote his
goal on a 3 x 5 foot sheet of paper and had his two kids
hold it between them as he snapped a few pictures with his
digital camera. He then taped the picture to the front of
his pack of cigarettes.

Connecting his goal with the love of his children gave him
what he needed to stick to his goal day after day and become
a proud ex-smoker.

5. Print out your favorite motivational quotes.

The right quotation at the right time can sometimes be all
you need to trigger your motivation and take action. Instead
of hoping this happens to you by chance, the tool below
will make sure it happens whenever you want it to.

Open your personal computer’s word processing program. Set
the page orientation to landscape and add a classic border.
Type in your favorite motivational quote in the center of
the page and print onto a heavier stock of paper. Display
wherever motivation is needed!

6. Schedule reminders with your computer or phone.

Think of one thing you can do, just a single action, that
will bring you closer to reaching your goals. When you have
it in mind, record it into your computer’s or cell phone’s
calendar and set the alarm to go off at the time the action
needs to be completed.

7. Bring a DVD to the office.

Can you think of a scene from a movie that you found moving
or motivational? If so, don’t leave it at home! Using your
computer’s DVD program or a portable DVD player, watch the
scene at work – on your break – when you need that extra
push in the right direction.

8. Bookmark your favorite inspirational Web sites.

It often happens that people stumble upon invaluable sources
of information online and then never return after their
initial visit, missing out on all of the new and inspiring
resources to come. To make sure this doesn’t happen to you,
bookmark the sites you find most motivating or inspiring.

9. Make use of your admiration.

Connecting with those whom you admire or respect is a quick
and easy way to tap into your internal motivation at a
moment’s notice. Find a picture – from an old photo album
if a family member, online if a historical figure – and
tape it up in the location where it will best serve its
motivational purpose.

Tools in Action: An author who found great inspiration
in the writings of Longfellow found an image of him online,
printed it out, and taped it to her laptop. When it was
time to write, the inspiration she needed was never more
than a glance away.

With just a few minutes of your time invested, you can have
handfuls of the most powerful and fast-acting motivation
tools at your fingertips.

Copyright: Motivation123

Best Regards,

DrealMcCoy

As a leader, do you honor and appreciate the power of WE? Do you stop to thank and recognize the members of your team? Do you consistently show an attitude of gratitude?

I recently read a great story about Captain Charles Plumb, a graduate from the Naval Academy, whose plane, after 74 successful combat missions over North Vietnam, was shot down.

He parachuted to safety, but was captured, tortured and spent 2,103 days in a small box-like cell.

After surviving the ordeal, Captain Plumb received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and two Purple Hearts, and returned to America and spoke to many groups about his experience and how it compared to the challenges of every day life.

Shortly after coming home, Charlie and his wife were sitting in a restaurant. A man rose from a nearby table, walked over and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

Surprised that he was recognized, Charlie responded, “How in the world did you know that?” The man replied, “I packed your parachute.” Charlie looked up with surprise. The man pumped his hand, gave a thumbs-up, and said, “I guess it worked!”

Charlie stood to shake the man’s hand, and assured him, “It most certainly did work. If it had not worked, I would not be here today.”

Charlie could not sleep that night, thinking about the man. He wondered if he might have seen him and not even said, “Good morning, how are you?” He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent bending over a long wooden table in the bottom of the ship, carefully folding the silks and weaving the shrouds of each chute, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Plumb then began to realize that along with the physical parachute, he needed mental, emotional and spiritual parachutes. He had called on all these supports during his long and painful ordeal.

As a leader, how many times a day, a week, a month, do we pass up the opportunity to thank those people in our organization who are “packing our parachutes?”

You need to have one secret element, and when you have that secret element, nothing will get in your way. That element is an intense desire! You must desire something with all of your heart to manifest it. Often the difference between those who manifest something and those who do not, is the element of desire. When you have a burning desire for something you ignite a fire within you that attracts with an incredible force. The law of attraction is magnetically drawn to that intense fire element in you, and it responds by gathering all universal forces to make your dream come true.

Very often we ask for things because we think our life will be better with those things, but inside of us we do not have an immense desire for those things. When you don’t feel that immense desire within you, you are receiving guidance telling you that this is not something you really want. That is why it is so important to get clear on what it is that you really want with all of your heart, because what you really want with all of your heart is the very desire that you can manifest quickly.

When your heart is on fire with desire you will attract the right things to do, you will find visualizing so easy, and you will find it is effortless to think positive thoughts of your desire. You will attract all the qualities you need, such as strength, courage, belief, persistence, faith, and a powerful will. An intense desire lights up your being, producing a magnetic force that enables the law of attraction to cut through every physical obstacle for you and make your dream come true.

Go for your dreams! Don’t cheat yourself in your life with petty desires because you don’t think you can live your dream. THE DREAM inside you is the one thing that you have the greatest power to create, because you have an immense desire for it. Find the dream inside you – and make it come true!

As a leader, do you honor and appreciate the power of WE? Do you stop to thank and recognize the members of your team? Do you consistently show an attitude of gratitude?

I recently read a great story about Captain Charles Plumb, a graduate from the Naval Academy, whose plane, after 74 successful combat missions over North Vietnam, was shot down. He parachuted to safety, but was captured, tortured and spent 2,103 days in a small box-like cell.

After surviving the ordeal, Captain Plumb received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and two Purple Hearts, and returned to America and spoke to many groups about his experience and how it compared to the challenges of every day life.

Shortly after coming home, Charlie and his wife were sitting in a restaurant. A man rose from a nearby table, walked over and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

Surprised that he was recognized, Charlie responded, “How in the world did you know that?” The man replied, “I packed your parachute.” Charlie looked up with surprise. The man pumped his hand, gave a thumbs-up, and said, “I guess it worked!”

Charlie stood to shake the man’s hand, and assured him, “It most certainly did work. If it had not worked, I would not be here today.”

Charlie could not sleep that night, thinking about the man. He wondered if he might have seen him and not even said, “Good morning, how are you?” He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent bending over a long wooden table in the bottom of the ship, carefully folding the silks and weaving the shrouds of each chute, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Plumb then began to realize that along with the physical parachute, he needed mental, emotional and spiritual parachutes. He had called on all these supports during his long and painful ordeal.

As a leader, how many times a day, a week, a month, do we pass up the opportunity to thank those people in our organization who are “packing our parachutes?”

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you.”

Alvin Frankie

A few years ago I had lunch with a top executive from a company known for their legendary retail service. My wife and I are both big fans, and over lunch I shared with him some of the great service stories his people had provided the Anderson family. I said, “With the service your people give…you must have a training manual 2 inches thick.”

He looked up and said, “Mac, we don’t have a training manual. What we do is find the best people we can find and we empower them to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer.”

Then he said something I’ll never forget. He said,
“We learned a long time ago that you can’t send a duck to eagle school.”
“Excuse me,” I said. He repeated… “You can’t send a duck to eagle school.” He said, “You can’t teach someone to smile, you can’t teach someone to want to serve, you can’t teach personality. What we can do, however, is hire people who have those qualities and we can then teach them about our products and teach them our culture.”

As long as I live I will never forget this simple analogy about hiring people. It is branded on my brain forever. And since that day, with every hiring decision I’ve made, I find myself asking the question: “Am I hiring a duck thinking they will become an eagle?” I can also honestly say that asking this simple question has saved me from making some important hiring mistakes. I just wish I’d heard it 20 years sooner.

The “Duck to Eagle School” lesson is one of many “simple truths” of leadership that I’ve learned on my journey as an entrepreneur. In the past 30 years, I’ve had the good fortune to be involved with three successful start up companies, each becoming a leader in its niche. And, as you can imagine, there have been many peaks, valleys and “lessons learned” along the way.
I’ve also been very fortunate to have met a lot of people who are a lot smarter than I. Successful entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, educators, coaches, and CEO’s of large companies, have all helped shape my thinking. It has been their wisdom and their knowledge, combined with my own life experiences, that have helped shape who I am today.

My goal is to share some of my “lessons learned” in a brief, but engaging way. Because so many times, it’s not what is said, but how it is said, that turns the switch from off to on. For me, one of the most exciting things about business and life, is that one great idea can change our life forever.

Watch the short clip, visit this link http://www.eagleschoolmovie.com/

By: Mac Anderson (www.simpletruths.com)

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