Tuesday, July 18, 2006

I got an e-mail from Jim Rohn with this article in it so I thought I would share.

Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow by Jim Rohn (Excerpted from the book The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle) by Jim Rohn


The problem with waiting until tomorrow is that when it finally arrives, it is called today. Today is yesterday's tomorrow. The question is what did we do with its opportunity? All too often we will waste tomorrow as we wasted yesterday, and as we are wasting today. All that could have been accomplished can easily elude us, despite our intentions, until we inevitably discover that the things that might have been have slipped from our embrace a single, unused day at a time.

Each of us must pause frequently to remind ourselves that the clock is ticking. The same clock that began to tick from the moment we drew our first breath will also someday cease.

Time is the great equalizer of all mankind. It has taken away the best and the worst of us without regard for either. Time offers opportunity but demands a sense of urgency.

When the game of life I finally over, there is no second chance to correct our errors. The clock that is ticking away the moments of our lives does not care about winners and losers. It does not care about who succeeds or who fails. It does not care about excuses, fairness or equality. The only essential issue is how we played the game.

Regardless of a person's current age, there is a sense of urgency that should drive them into action now - this very moment. We should be constantly aware of the value of each and every moment of our lives - moments that seem so insignificant that their loss often goes unnoticed.

We still have all the time we need. We still have lots of chances - lots of opportunities - lots of years to show what we can do. For most of us, there will be a tomorrow, a next week, a next month, and a next year. But unless we develop a sense of urgency, those brief windows of time will be sadly wasted, as were the weeks and months and years before them. There isn't an endless supply!

So, as you think of your dreams and goals of your future tomorrow, begin today to take those very important first steps to making them all come to life.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn


This article is excerpted from Jim Rohn's best-selling Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle book. To learn more about Jim and his products, go to www.jimrohn.com or call 800-929-0434.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Does Speed Reading Have a Direct Correlation to Income? by Ron White

It has been said that standard education will get you jobs, and self-education will make you fortunes. This is no doubt true, and I believe that reading is a key skill necessary to self-education. Statistics say the average CEO in America reads 4-5 books per month while the average American reads 1 book per year! This same statistic goes on to say that 60% of those average American's don't even get past the first chapter in that one book! You may shrug your shoulders and say – okay big deal – so what? I am not a reader and why should that bother me?

Whether it should bother you or not is for you to decide. I simply share the facts with you. So here is another interesting fact: The average CEO of a fortune 500 company will earn an average of 536 times the salary of the average employee of the company he runs. This means that the employee of that company will work for a year and a half to equal the salary of the CEO for one day! What an extremely amazing and true statistic! Now, I am not going to suggest to you that the only difference between the CEO and the average employee is that the CEO reads a lot of books and the employee doesn't, however, I will suggest to you that it is one of the major differences.

Now, if it is true that knowledge and even reading has a correlation to income, and I believe that it does, then wouldn't it be logical to conclude that it is in our benefit and interest to learn to read faster.

So the good news is that you can learn to read faster. However, the more important factor here is that you can read faster WITH comprehension. You see if you simply read faster but do not comprehend or recall what you have read, then what have you gained? Not only is speed reading with comprehension and retention possible for the human mind, you'll be glad to learn it really is not a tough chore. The challenge is in learning the system. Because we know your brain is very systematic, then we can actually train it to read faster. Thomas Jefferson said that if we do everything that we are capable of we would truly astound ourselves.

The human mind is the greatest computer ever created. Nothing in the world will ever compare to it. It is a truly phenomenal machine that, when fed, will respond with results that will astound you. Benjamin Franklin told us that if we take the pennies from our pockets and put them in our heads, our heads will then fill up our pockets once again. This is so true. The person who invests time educating himself will reap a lifetime of extra knowledge, fun and income.

So let's do what Franklin suggested and spend our pennies on books. As we read these books faster and faster and gain more and more knowledge, we'll look back in amazement as our knowledge and quality of life increases. By increasing your reading speed, you are doing just one of the things you are capable of. My hope is that it will spark a fire in you to learn even more and in doing so develop and use more of your potential. Do this by continually learning and feeding the flames with information, knowledge and action.

-- Ron White


Ron White has spent over a decade training business professionals and students how to improve their memory, grades and income. He has appeared on FOX television, broken a Guinness Record by memorizing a 28-digit number in 75 seconds, been a guest on over 35 radio programs in the United States and Canada, and his articles have appeared in print across the country. Ron's live workshops sell out every time at $349 per person. To learn more about Ron's Newest Release, Speed Reading - a Systematic Plan to Read Faster and Retain More! scroll down to #4 below or go to http://speedreading.jimrohn.com

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I was reading my e-mail today when I recieved a e-mail from Jack Canfield the co-author for The Chicken and Soup for the Soul series. Its and amazing article that I think is vital for your success. Enjoy also dreamingtodoing.com is still in beta and going through some great updates so stay checked in.

Visualize and Affirm Your Desired Outcomes: Visualizing
A Step-by-Step Guide

You have within you an awesome power that most of us have never been taught to use. Elite athletes use it. The super rich use it. And peak performers in all fields are now starting to use it. That power is called visualization. The daily practice of visualizing your dreams as already complete can rapidly accelerate your achievement of those dreams. Visualization of your goals and desires accomplishes four very important things.

1. It activates your creative subconscious which will start generating creative ideas to achieve your goal.

2. It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you will need to achieve your dreams.

3. It activates the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and circumstances you will need to achieve your goals.

4. It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

Visualization is really quite simple. You sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine — in as vivid detail as you can — what you would be looking at if the dream you have were already realized. Imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal result.

Mental Rehearsal

Athletes call this visualization process “mental rehearsal,” and they have been using it since the 1960s when we learned about it from the Russians. All you have to do is set aside a few minutes a day. The best times are when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. These are the times you are most relaxed. Go through the following three steps:

1. Imagine sitting in a movie theater, the lights dim, and then the movie starts. It is a movie of you doing perfectly whatever it is that you want to do better. See as much detail as you can create, including your clothing, the expression on your face, small body movements, the environment and any other people that might be around. Add in any sounds you would be hearing — traffic, music, other people talking, cheering. And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.

2. Get out of your chair, walk up to the screen, open a door in the screen and enter into the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.

3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theater, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Then, bring this miniature screen up to your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. Imagine that each tiny piece — just like a hologram — contains the full picture of you performing well. Imagine all these little screens traveling down into your stomach and out through the bloodstream into every cell of your body. Then imagine that every cell of your body is lit up with a movie of you performing perfectly. It’s like one of those appliance store windows where 50 televisions are all tuned to the same channel.

When you have finished this process — it should take less than five minutes — you can open your eyes and go about your business. If you make this part of your daily routine, you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see in your life.

Create Goal Pictures

Another powerful technique is to create a photograph or picture of yourself with your goal, as if it were already completed. If one of your goals is to own a new car, take your camera down to your local auto dealer and have a picture taken of yourself sitting behind the wheel of your dream car. If your goal is to visit Paris, find a picture or poster of the Eiffel Tower and cut out a picture of yourself and place it into the picture. With today’s technology, you could probably make an even more convincing image using your computer.

Create a Visual Picture and an Affirmation for Each Goal

We recommend that you find or create a picture of every aspect of your dream life. Create a picture or a visual representation for every goal you have — financial, career, recreation, new skills and abilities, things you want to purchase, and so on. When we were writing the very first Chicken Soup for the Soul® book, we took a copy of the New York Times best seller list, scanned it into our computer, and using the same font as the newspaper, typed Chicken Soup for the Soul into the number one position in the “Paperback Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” category. We printed several copies and hung them up around the office. Less than two years later, our book was the number one book in that category and stayed there for over a year!

Index Cards

We practice a similar discipline every day. We each have a list of about 30-40 goals we are currently working on. We write each goal on a 3x5 index card and keep those cards near our bed and take them with us when we travel. Each morning and each night we go through the stack of cards, one at a time, read the card, close our eyes, see the completion of that goal in its perfect desired state for about 15 seconds, open our eyes and repeat the process with the next card.

Use Affirmations to Support Your Visualization

An affirmation is a statement that evokes not only a picture, but the experience of already having what you want. Here’s an example of an affirmation:

I am happily vacationing 2 months out of the year in a tropical paradise,
and working just four days a week owning my own business.

Repeating an affirmation several times a day keeps you focused on your goal, strengthens your motivation, and programs your subconscious by sending an order to your crew to do whatever it takes to make that goal happen.

Expect Results

Through writing down your goals, using the power of visualization and repeating your affirmations, you can achieve amazing results. Visualization and affirmations allow you to change your beliefs, assumptions, and opinions about the most important person in your life — YOU! They allow you to harness the 18 billion brain cells in your brain and get them all working in a singular and purposeful direction.

Your subconscious will become engaged in a process that transforms you forever. The process is invisible and doesn’t take a long time. It just happens over time, as long as you put in the time to visualize and affirm, surround yourself with positive people, read uplifting books and listen to audio programs that flood your mind with positive, life-affirming messages.

Repeat your affirmations every morning and night for a month and they will become an automatic part of your thinking — they will become woven into the very fabric of your being.