Always have a toothpick handy!

Remember the movie,  “CITY SLICKERS” with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance?  Remember on the cattle drive when Jack Palance’s character Curly holds up his forefinger and says “The key to life is just one thing!”  Well, A few days ago I received a gift of the book, “THE LAW OF ATTRACTION”  by Esther and Jerry Hicks and I now know that “one thing” and am ready to pass the secret on to you.   First, allow me to say that what has struck me most in reading this great book is how similar the Law of Attraction principles are to the more common principles of goal setting.

For those of you who don’t know, the Law of Attraction says,  “that which is like unto itself, is drawn.”   In other words, we receive those things in life, good or bad, that we think about most.  I thought that goal setting is based on the very same concept. 

Why do people with goals succeed in life…and people without them fail?

Well, let me share something with you that can alter your life immediately.  If you understand it totally like Curly did, your life will never be the same from this moment on.  You won’t see everyone else having all the good luck because if you understand what I am going to share with you, you’ll suddenly find that good luck just seems to be attracted to you also.  You will find that the things you want will just seem to fall in line and from now on you won’t have the problems, the worries, the gnawing lump of anxiety that we have all experienced before.   Doubt, anxiety and fear will be things of the past.

Here is the key to success and the key to failure that Curly was alluding to:

  We become and achieve what we think about most!

Throughout all history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things.  It is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement.

Consider what Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said: “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

Benjamin Disraeli said this: “Everything comes if a man will only wait. I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

Well, it’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? And I will bet that every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out.

We become what we think about.

So whether it is called goal setting or the Law of Attraction, the principles are exactly the same.  What we think and focus on most defines who we are and our station in life.  Thanks, Curly!

Have a great day! Rick

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick

This is not really a new post but more of an update.  In my article of Feb. 16th, I said that I hit a landmark weight of 180lbs which was a loss of 16 lbs in 9 weeks!  Today after my workout I was 177 3/4 which is another 2 pound loss in the last 10 days!  Overall, my average has been 1.8 pounds per week since I started my program!  What is really encouraging is that the loss has been  pure fat because the weight training I have been doing has been adding muscle which weighs more than fat.   All the experts say that losing between 1 and 2 pounds per week is a great target for weight loss and one that is very doable for anybody.  

 Just think….if I keep up this weekly rate of weight loss  I will weigh NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NADA in a little over 98 weeks from now!  Seriously,  I am going to start maintaining my weight when I hit a trim and slim, lean and mean 175.

  I think the best part of this last 10 weeks has been that I have been doing it all in the dead of one of worst midwest winters in recent memory.  We woke up to 5 new inches of snow this morning which has almost become a regular expectation around here.Don’t you wish you were here!   Have a great day, Rick

In my ”about” bio at the top of the page,  I mentioned that I moved to South America in 2004 to retire and work on my Spanish.  It was a great plan!  What I didn’t tell you is that everything in retirement didn’t work out exactly how I planned it.  If it had, I would probably still be relaxing in Ecuador. 

Before I explain what happened I have to share a funny line I heard from one of my co-workers in August of 2004.  We were talking about my upcoming decision to retire and he said, “I myself have also planned well for retirement.  I have saved enough money over the years so that I will be able to live like a king for the rest of my life….. that is, as long as I die by February of 05′!!! ”

That line really cracked me up when he said it.  Little did I know that life was going to throw a bit of a curve at me making my real retirement eerily similar to his tongue-in-cheek witicism.   Without going into all the gory details I am bemused to tell you that I went broke!  I lost it all due to some poor choices and a little bad luck.  Now I find myself starting over again at the age of 61 and I have to say, I have never been happier!

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be! 

I spent so many years on the fast track in Las Vegas trying to amass all the goodies and toys that I could.  I thought that that was how you kept score.  You need to amass all the material things that you could.   WRONG!   All that approach does is give you ulcers with worry and constant stress and anxiety.  I now know that instead of increasing my material wants, I should have been decreasing my material desires. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like money as well as the next person because it gives you a security and freedom to do the things you want for yourself and your loved ones.  Where I went wrong was  thinking that the only reason for doing something was to make money.   The correct thinking should have been, and still is, the truism;

You will get everything in life that you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want! 

I realize I have lost my money but I haven’t lost my wealth.   I have my health, my talent and a new zest for life that has been missing for many years.  

I wandered around with no direction for about 18 months.  I was a headless vector!  I finalized a “War of the Roses”  type of divorce and went through a bankruptcy.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until my son gave me the idea of starting this blog.  I now see the real mission of my life.  I not only want to rise out of the ashes myself but with your help maybe assist others who are in the same boat as me.  I realize I am in the autumn of my life but I have never been more jazzed and motivated than I am right now.  

I’m not worried about dying…I’m now worried about not living!

No one wants to die.  Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.  And yet death is the destination we all share.   No one has ever made it out alive.   And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.  It is Life’s change agent.  It clears out the old to make way for the new.  Right now the new are my sons and the youth of the world, but someday not too long from now, they will gradually become the old and be cleared away also.  Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Our time is limited, so we can’t  waste it living someone else’s life.  We can’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  We can’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out our own inner voices.  And most important of all, we must have the courage to follow our hearts and intuition.  They somehow already know what we truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.

So my days of being a headless vector are over!  I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!  Later, Rick

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick

You want to separate yourself from the pack?  Be a better salesperson? Listen up!

We have already talked about the importance of asking great questions to develop trust.  Unfortunately, the ability to ask clear and concise questions is of no benefit at all if we don’t actively listen to the answers.  So, I also shared the keys to effective listening in an earlier post.

What we want to do in this article is to chat a bit about what our approach should be when our customers ask questions.  Remember that perception is reality for both us and our customer.  We can’t assume that we know exactly what our customer means when they ask us a question.  Many times, I have found, our customers don’t really know what they want.  We have to help.  It takes a little proding and deducing on our part to help our customer make an informed choice.  I have always felt that a truly professional salesperson doesn’t really sell anything!  What they do is create a warm, friendly and credible environment in which the customer can discover for themselves that they want to purchase our product or service.  Never forget:

 People LOVE to buy but they HATE to be “sold!”   

Let me share an example with how easy it can be to have the wrong perception with a customer’s question.

   A lady walked into a cutlery store and was admiring the knife displays when a salesperson approached and asked if he could be of assistance.  She asked, “Are these knives very sharp?”  Her salesperson couldn’t wait to get into his sales presentation.  “Are you kidding me?” he replied, “These are the sharpest knives on the planet.  They have been designed using the newest laser technology and are guaranteed to be the sharpest knives you will ever use!”   

The lady replied, “Gee, I’m sorry then.  These knives won’t work because they are to be a gift for my elderly and frail mother and I’m afraid that she might hurt herself with knives so sharp.”  Oops!  See how easy the wheels can come off?  Obviously, the salesperson assumed wrongly that he knew what the customer meant when she asked her question. 

What should have been done differently? 

Don’t assume! That is the first piece of advice.  Never assume you know what your customer means.  The professional never assumes.  He first asks questions for clarification.  Our hapless salesperson above could have increased his chances greatly by just asking the obvious follow-up question. “Is sharpness important to you?”  He would have then learned about the feeble mom and then he would know what type of knives to show to better fit his customer’s needs.  He also would have developed trust by taking an active interest.  By discovering the ultimate use of the knives he could now act as a caring counselor and not a pushy salesperson.  He could have responded with something like, “So, if I understand you correctly, you would like to purchase some quality knives as a present for your Mom that she can use with confidence but at the same time give you peace of mind that she is not going to accidentaly hurt herself.  Is that correct?”  “YES!”  “Great, then if you would allow me to make a recommendation why don’t you inspect these knives over here…………. ”

Wow, that response is stronger than 3 acres of garlic!  It shows that not only were you listening to your customer’s concerns, but you also have empathy.   

You can, I am sure, think of many more examples depending on the type of product or service being offered.  I might also add that the best follow-up questions are asked in a conversational tone of voice.  Remember that although selling is asking…how you ask is every bit as important.  This is not an interrogation.  It is a transference of feeling and information.  

  I would be interested in hearing from you professionals out there on similar sales examples you have witnessed  that can help the rest of us.  Rick

 OK, so I can’t moonwalk like Michael but I was front row center for the bravura performance that the moon put on last night.  Here in the heartland of Iowa it was a perfectly still, cloudless night so the conditions were perfect albeit a little on the chilly side.  The celestial show was well worth waiting for and to think I almost missed it.  If it hadn’t been for my dear friend in Wyoming I wouldn’t have even known it was going to occur.   Even though we are separated by over 1,000 miles we were able to enjoy the event together.  We made our “lunar connection”  knowing we were each part of the same cosmic moment and together we watched the universe unfold as it has since the beginning of time.

We live in a world today that seems so structured; the Sun rises, goes across the sky and then sets. The Moon goes through its phases from new to full and back again. It all seems like clockwork, and then, something unusual happens that seems to throw the orderly timing of the cosmos into chaos. On a night when the moon rises full and beautiful, it starts to change, at first it is so subtle few notice it. But then ever so slowly the moon begins to dim and alarmingly disappears.

One can only imagine how frightening the sight of a lunar eclipse must have been for our ancestors. Far more than us, they were in tune with the rhythms of the cosmos, the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets were the motions these people lived by. They told short time by the daily passing of the Sun and used the moon phases for longer periods of time.  The passing of the seasons were marked by the stars.  The skies were orderly and dependable except for when an eclipse happened.  During that time chaos reigned and our ancestors prayed and begged for the Moon to be returned to the sky.

Eclipses have influenced history and, even today there are those who attach ancient superstitions to an eclipse.  But they are in the minority for we now know what causes lunar eclipses.  And although it may seem a magic show of shadow and light and a disappearing act by the Moon, we know how the “magic” works.  Even so, we can still appreciate the beauty.

I was struck by how dark the sky was during the period of “totality” allowing me to see so many more stars than would normally be visible against the backlight of a full moon.   Miss Wyoming asked me why the Moon appears to be red so I had to do a little research for her.  It seems that some of the sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere and is bent around behind the Earth and beamed towards the moon. The shorter wavelengths of light are scattered and aren’t seen so only the longer orange and red wavelengths reach the moon.  It is that combination of longer wavelengths that usually supply just enough light to cast a coppery red hue on the Moon.   Last night the moon appeared to me as kind of a burnt orange. 

There are times however, such as when there have been volcanic eruptions on the Earth, that the light is so scattered by the volcanic ash that almost no light reaches the moon and it may be so dark as to be not seen at all.  Those were the events that must have really freaked out our ancestors.

At any rate, I guess what I want to say now that the cosmic show is over and won’t do an encore until 2010, is that our world of today has gone and got itself in a great big hurry.  Most of us spend so much time on the fast-track of life that the really important things that make life special kind of pass us by.  I know I missed alot of years of my boys growth and development cause I was so busy chasing the Jones’s.  And for what?  I would give anything to be able to have a “do-over” with my boys.  I love how Rod Stewart said it in one of his songs - “I wish… that…. I knew what I know now….. when I was younger!”

I did call my sons last night and told them to watch the eclipse and for them to know that I loved them and would be watching also.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Vegas so we made a date for 2010. 

We can learn much about our world if we just read a bit about eclipses.  They are steeped in history, superstitions, astronomy and the sciences.  I loved learning that the Boston Red Sox won their first title in 86 years during an eclipse.  I also discovered the little know fact that Christopher Columbus and his men were captured by wild natives on his 4th trip to the Carribean.  He was able to predict the next lunar eclipse and scared the superstitious natives into believing he had the power to  make the moon disappear permanently if they weren’t released.  Tell me that knowledge isn’t power!!

Obviously, last nights cosmic event was pretty grand but there are other “events” that occur daily on a much smaller scale but are, in no way, any less powerful in the effect they can have on our lives if we just stop, look and listen for them.  Stop and smell the roses.  You deserve to pay yourselves back for all the hard work you have done and are doing.  Keep coming back here for more musings.  See you in 2010!