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Take TIme To Think
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How The Mighty Fall
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Mark Jennings // 03 14:48

Vlad // 11 22:46

Dave // 06 09:34

The Olympics and Your Strength Zone

2010-02-28 09:24:51

What is the largest gathering in the world of people living in their Strength Zone? I'll only give you one hint....it is finishing February 28th in Vancouver, BC.

That's right, the Olympics are the largest gathering in the world of people living in their Strength Zone. These people are the "elite of the elite" athletes in the world. These athletes, whether individual performers or team members, have spent a significant portion of their lives training to the highest level of performance possible. Each of the athletes has individual strengths that are best in class. They have taken these strengths and refined them to the point that they are the elite in the world. Now this didn't happen overnight and it didn't come without sacrifice and pain. It came with stunning determination and extreme focus on making strengths stronger. They hired coaches and experts and they trained, studied, reviewed video, practiced, competed, stuck with gruelling, disciplined routines and repeated this day after day, month after month and year after year until they were truly among the best in the world.

And then they came to Vancouver to compete to see who was truly the best in the world.

The amazing thing was that this disciplined, focused approach did not stop while they were competing in Vancouver....instead it was even more pronounced. The athletes continued their training routine and continued to refine their techniques and skills right up to their competition. In fact, there were numerous instances of athletes in multiple events or in events that required staged competitions that went through videos of their first performance and made adjustments to tweak their performance and squeeze out a little more from their area of strengths. These athletes were rewarded with Olympic medals (checkout medalists in curling, skating, figure skating, luge, skeleton, bob sledding and hockey for great examples).

So, what am I getting at?

If athletes do this to become the best they can be, why don't the rest of us. Think how good each of us would be if we would hire coaches and experts to help us identify our strengths and then trained, studied and practiced in these areas of strength every day. We would become the best in the world in what we do.....so why wait? Get started training in your Strength Zone and live up to your full potential!

Tags: strength, , strength, zone, , olympics, , vancouver
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Take TIme To Think

2010-02-20 11:50:39

The famous Nobel prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer was once posed the question "what's wrong with men today?" He answered this with "They don't take time to think."

Did you know that out of 100 men today, in 40 years, only one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, 54 will be broke and the rest will be reliant on varying levels of government support? Why is this? Because we don't take time to think. We don't take time to discover our strengths and how they can be used towards a worthy ideal. It was Earl Nightingale who stated "The only man who succeeds is the man who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal." We cannot fulfill this by randomly meandering through life! We must all take the time to think and discover ourselves, discover our strengths and discover our worthy ideal. Failure to do this is dooming ourselves to a live of mediocrity.

James Allen said "You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." This is very similar to what Solomon said thousands of years earlier "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."

What are you thinking about today? Are you spending enough time in thought and study or are you wasting your time away watching TV, spending too much time partying or other activities. These things are not necessarily bad things but too much of them can be extremely wasteful. You need to properly allot time each day to thought, planning and learning. You need to set goals and begin working towards your own worthy ideal. What you think about today, tomorrow and next month will shape your life and form your future. Do you want your future to resemble a soap opera, a game show or a talk show? Why not spend your time thinking about your worthy ideal?

Start today and set aside some time to think. Read John C. Maxwell's book "Thinking for a Change" or Joey Reiman's book "Thinking for a Living". Spend some time exploring your strengths. Discover your Strength Zone. Discover your worthy ideal. Do it and watch your life move successfully down a path that progressively realizes your worthy ideal!

Tags: strength, , strength, zone, , thinking, , Albert, Schweitzer, , Maxwell
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Farming, Fertilizer and Your Strength Zone

2010-02-13 10:36:02

Don't approach your life like a farmer spreading fertilizer evenly across his fields.

What does this mean?

Until recently, before the advent of GPS systems, computers, automated chemical and biological analyzers, the best farmers could do was to spread fertilizer evenly across their fields regardless of the soil type, the hydration levels, the ph balance or nutrient content which can vary dramatically from one square meter to the next. The result of this type of fertilizing scheme was the following;

1) Great yields in the areas where the fertilizer matched the requirements of the soil

2) Mediocre yields where there was a partial match

3) Poor yields and perhaps even crop kill in areas where the fertilizer was completely wrong

4) Wasted fertilizer, fuel and money

The answer to this farming dilemma has surfaced over the last few years with new technology that allows a farmer to map his soil content using GPS technology. This allows his newly automated tractor to travel through his fields and automatically adjust the fertilizer spray amounts and contents based on the GPS positioned soil content mapping. He can even adjust the amount of seed planted in different areas using the same technology. This allows the farmer to adjust his farming techniques to take advantage of the different soil strengths that he has on his land. This approach has resulted in substantially higher yields, a lot less wasted seed and fertilizer and lower costs.

The same principle applies to us as individuals. Don't assume that you have strengths in every area of life. Don't try to be a well-rounded individual or "renaissance man". Rather, find out where your strengths lie and then develop and apply these strengths at every opportunity. Apply the "fertilizer" to your life in the areas of your strength. Learn and grow in these areas until they clearly differentiate you in the marketplace....and then learn and grow some more.

Tags: farming, , fertilizer, , strengths, , strength, zone
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Fidelity versus Convenience

2010-02-06 11:41:50

Kevin Maney recently wrote a book entitled "Trade-Off". In his book he discusses the reasons why some things catch on and why other things fail. The basic premise of the book is that there is a trade-off between a high fidelity idea, service or product and a convenient idea, service or product. Very rarely can an idea, product or service be both and when they do try to be both most end up stuck in between in fierce competition with others. People are looking for either high convenience or high fidelity. Anything in between becomes a commodity and isn't really sought after by the marketplace.

For example, a U2 concert held in a stadium with pyrotechnics, laser light show, eardrum bursting loud music and tens of thousands of people in attendance is a high fidelity event or product but it is not really convenient. In contrast, a U2 CD has quite a bit less fidelity but is quite a bit more convenient, while downloading a digital version U2's "It's a Beautiful Day" from iTunes is even more convenient but has significantly less fidelity than the concert. Similarly, Neiman Marcus would be considered a high fidelity shopping experience but low convenience (due to high prices and limited products) while Wal-Mart would be low fidelity but high convenience (stores everywhere, all kinds of products and super low prices). If Neiman Marcus decided to open as many stores as Wal-Mart and began to sell a wide array of low cost products then they would become more convenient but would loose their fidelity. Each of these products or services attracts a certain type of consumer but he same consumer is typically not attracted to both.

Amazon recently come out with their ebook reader called the Kindle. When it first came out it could be argued that it was quite high fidelity and very convenient with hundreds of thousands of low cost books available with the touch of a few buttons. Recently, Apple has leapfrogged the Kindle in the high fidelity category with their new iPad product. However, this product is super high priced and doesn't have nearly the same number of books available which makes it low convenience. All Amazon has to do to continue to compete with the iPad is to drop the price of the Kindle and continue to create Kindle compatible books at better prices than Apple has for its iPad....thus making the Kindle a high convenience product.

So, what does this have to do with your Strength Zone....Quite a bit actually.

If you are willing to take a disciplined approach to your life, you can build a high fidelity career around your Strength Zone. All you need to do is to figure out what you can do better than most other people (i.e., your Strength Zone) and then leverage this in every opportunity possible and always grow in this area, making your Strength Zone stronger and your fidelity higher. The higher fidelity you are, the more demand there will be for your services and the higher the fee you will be able to charge.

However, once you begin to "slack off" and stop learning and growing in your Strength Zone, your fidelity will begin to drop, the demand for your services will fall and you will have to drop your fees to become more convenient and to continue to work. At this point you are in danger of being sucked into the abyss with the masses stuck between high fidelity and high convenience. Here the competition is fierce and the services provided are mediocre.

So, avoid getting stuck in the abyss with the mediocre masses. Instead, live and grow in your Strength Zone!

Tags: strength, zone, , fidelity, , convenience, , Trade-Off, , Kevin, Maney
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