Shifts to Sustainability

Will You Dance With Me?

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I was thinking the other day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible.

How many people out there will eat at home because their spouse didn’t suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word ‘refrigeration’ mean nothing to you?

How often has someone dropped in to talk and they sat in silence while you watched television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, ‘How about going to lunch in a half hour?’ She would gas up and stammer, ‘I can’t. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain.’ And my personal favorite: ‘It’s Monday.’ She died a few weeks ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because we cram so much into our lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get the baby toilet-trained. We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet… We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. Time flies… One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of ‘I’m going to’s,’ ‘I plan on’s,’ and ‘Someday, I’ll’s.’

When anyone calls my ’seize the moment’ friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord…

My lips had not touched ice cream in 10 years… I love ice cream! It’s just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker ice-cream cone. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now… go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to… not something you just think you ‘SHOULD DO’. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call? And what would you say? And, more importantly… why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ‘ How are you?’ Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say ‘Hi?

Sometimes forgiveness can be a gift you give to yourself, when we get offended at someone’s thoughtless comments, or hurtful acts, give them the benefit of the doubt… forgive them, and move on.

Life is way too short to hold a grudge… anger is like a poison that you drink, expecting the other person to get sick… it hurts you the most… and also those you love who miss out of all that love and energy that you wasted.

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift… Thrown away… Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.
To those I have sent this to… I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

If I don’t call you… call me! If you would like to hear from someone, call them, and don’t keep score. Enlightenment is the equivalent to joy in the practical sense, and you get more joy in life from giving love, forgiving thoughtlessness (including your own), and stepping forward toward the happiness that you want right now…

Life may not be the party we hoped for… but while we are here we might as well dance!

Nourishing Traditions… a book whose time has come

A good friend of mine, Kristie Olsen introduced me to an incredibly important book, Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon.  As I listen to Kristie’s story of trying many different things to try to bring her husband back from the brink of death, and hearing how this book came into her life, and the insight it brought with it, I am excited each time I open the book, and read more of Sally Fallon’s philosophy, and her recipes.

I have tried many different dieting methods, from raw food, to vegan to vegetarian, to carnivore, and none of these ways of eating have brought me the energy that eating a traditional nutrient dense diet has.

One of the areas that I will be focusing on in this blog will be the methods of eating and preparing foods based upon the ideas found in this book.  If you are looking for a well balanced, healthy and highly energy creating diet, look no further.  Go out today and buy this book.

One of the changes to my diet over the past several months has been the introduction to lacto-fermented foods, I have been making my own Kefir, and Kombucha Tea, as well as using Water Kefir Grains to make nutritious soda drinks… the kids don’t love them yet, but they are getting a bit more adventurous, as my skills and timing improve in the making of these amazingly healthful foods.

I started a new beverage that I found in Nourishing Traditions called Beet Kvass, it didn’t sound very good, but I had a few beets that were about to turn, so I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot… the Beet Kvass, was salty, and tasted like watered down beets, but I drank a small glass of it this morning, and I will drink a bit everyday and see what happens.

This book should be in every household in the world.  If we followed this counsel we would all be much healthier.

A goal not written is just a wish…

The harvest season is always a wonder-filled and magical time for me, a time to evaluate how the year is turning out, where I am in my goals, and what I can do to finish the year out strong.  This is not the time of year that many write goals, but it is a perfect time for me… and maybe you too.  As I have completed this ‘process’ of evaluating my life and creating a list of potential goals many, many times, I decided that I would create a system that would help facilitate the process for me as well as for clients and friends.  Here is my simple process, which is a compilation of many of the best and brightest processes I have used, as well as my own thoughts:

1.     Read this entire process first, so you will understand what is in store for you.

2.    Identify what you really want, then write it down as a potential goal.

3.    Reflect on one item (the highest priority) that you have written down, visualize it in its perfect completion.

4.    Take that item, and identify all of the potential obstacles to the accomplishment of that goal.

5.     Now, write your goal in the following way

• Present tense, write it as if it has already been achieved, or you are already in possession of the thing you desire.
• Be exact in what you want, it is not nearly as effective to say, “I want more money” as it is to say, “it is June 1^st 2010, and I am in possession of $250,000.”
• Make your goal measurable, so you can gauge whether you have accomplished it or not, and how far you have come toward its accomplishment.

6.    Establish a B-S-G level for the goal you have identified, for example,

• Bronze- “it is June 1^st 2010, and I am in possession of $50,000.
• Silver- “it is June 1^st 2010, and I am in possession of $100,000.
• Gold- “it is June 1^st 2010, and I am in possession of $250,000.

7.     Find a partner who you can delegate certain parts of your goals to, this is not possible in all goals but can be very powerful with the right goal.  For example if your goal was to organize your home office, to make it more comfortable to do business in, you could simply hire a company to come in and put together an office to your specifications, or do any of the part of the process that you are not wanting to do.

8.    Find an accountability partner, this is simply another person with whom you share your goal, who can keep you accountable and on track., this person must be willing to call you on not making progress, and you must have the respect of that person so you will be willing to take action.

9.    Next Action Step- Once you have written your goal, created three possibilities for a positive outcome, and found partners to assist you look at the goal itself and write down what the next critical action step is, the very next thing that can be done to move you toward completion.

10.  Reward- this is an extremely important step, once you have accomplished a action step, reward yourself, but remember to make the reward equal to the effort, for example if your goal is to run a marathon, and your next action step is to buy great running shoes so you can start jogging on a daily basis, do not reward yourself with taking a month off exercise, or a half gallon of ice cream, maybe you can get yourself a fruit smoothie for moving toward your goal.

11.   This last step is very simple, once you have taken your most important potential goals and have gone through this entire process of making it a well-defined and achievable goal with a definable next action step to work on, you then go back through your list of potential goals and choose the next goal, and follow this same process of steps 3 – 11, until you have completed the process for five goals.  Now get to work.

Vision Boards

A few months ago I completed teaching a yearlong class at a private school where 5 of my children attend, the class was called Prosperity Economics, and it was a blast to teach so many young people about the principles that lead to prosperity and abundance.  The final project for the semester was where each student had the opportunity to take a couple moments and present to the class their Vision Board that they had created during the past semester.

I saw many different ways of presenting the same basic theme, and I was inspired by the creativity that many of the students put into the creation of their Vision Boards.  The process that each of the students went through was very similar to what I’ll show you here… hopefully if you have not already created a Vision Board you will take the time to create one soon, the power that can come from the visual representations of your goals and dreams is incredible.  Here is the simple step by step that I did in creating my own Vision Board, and what I show others how to create it as well.

All you will need for this powerful exercise is a poster board, or a large frame that you can get at any discount store, a bunch (dozens) of old magazines, a glue stick, a pair of scissors and some time (about 2-4 hour).

1.     Create a list of 100+ Dreams, write as fast as you can, and just write them down.  Here is a small sample of some of the dreams on my list:

• To be financially free
• To have excellent physical health
• To be a persuasive, powerful, and motivating speaker
• To have friends all over the world
• To be licensed to fly airplanes
• To be licensed to fly helicopters
• To fly a hot air balloon
• To SCUBA dive in beautiful places all over the world
• To go skydiving
• To produce all my own organic food
• To visit every country in the world
• To speak before 25,000 people at one time
• To write a best selling book
• To complete an Ironman while in my 40’s
• To control at least $10 Million in assets
• To build a beautiful barn in one day… Amish style
• To build a beautiful home on our farm that runs completely off the grid
• To walk barefoot on a bed of hot coals
• To touch peoples lives in a deep, powerful and lasting way for good
• To participate in or ignite an American free market revolution toward decentralization
• To save at least one farm animal breed from extinction
• To live healthy, strong and lucid until I am 125 years old

2.    Look over your list of Dreams, and write down a visual representation of that dream, for example, if one of your dreams was to speak to a large audience, then a picture of an audience would possibly be a great visual cue for you.  If your dream was to own a 2009 BMW 760 Li, then a picture of that car in your favorite color would be perfect.

3.    Next, what I have done with several groups (as well as myself) is scour dozens of magazines looking for pictures that represent the visual cues that I wrote down.  Cut out those pictures, and start to collect them.  Also look for words that inspire you and for ideas represented in photos.  For example, on of my desires is to be thick skinned, so that I wont choose to be offended easily, and I thought that a rhinoceros would perfectly illustrate that idea, so I found a picture of a rhinoceros, and I cut it out.  Freedom was also an ideal for me, and a herd of wild mustangs communicated that feeling very well.  You can also search the Internet for pictures and just print them off.

4.    Next what you do is look at the blank canvas that will become your Vision Board, and plan out in your mind where you would like certain things to be, you can divide up the board based on area of your life, such as Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual, Physical and Financial, or on some other criteria.  The all you do is start gluing the pictures to the board, do not stress over how it will look, it will turn out perfectly.  Cut out quotes that have deep meaning to you, put pictures of important people in your life, such as family, friends, religious figures, pictures of nature and things that help you feel prosperous, such as luxury cars, beautiful homes and fertile farmland.

5.     When your Vision Board is complete, hang it on a wall where you will see it for a large part of your day, or at least when you first wake up in the morning, and make it a part of your early morning ritual to look at the board, and visualize yourself accomplishing the dreams that are represented by the images on the Board.

One of the main reasons that I am in the process of shifting careers from business consultant to organic farmer at 42 years old was in large part to the experience of creating my Vision Board, and making sure that my experience truly represented what I really, really, really wanted out of my life.

Enjoy creating the life that YOU TRULY WANT!!!

The Unexamined Life…

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is a saying that has been attributed to Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher. I am not sure of the context in which this was said, so I am making an assumption when I look at the idea Socrates was attempting to convey. So here goes… when I think about living a life in which I do not examine my heart or my actions, my thoughts or my feelings, the essence of such a life seems hollow and meaningless to me. Where is the growth? Where is the opportunity for improvement? I do not think that Socrates meant for someone who did not take self-examination seriously that they were not worthy of living, but rather that the person who examines his or her life has so much more capacity to experience happiness and satisfaction in their lives.

This may seem self-evident to most people, however in talking with many many people over the years, the unexamined life is the norm. I have coached hundreds of people, and the first activity that I have my clients do, is a self-examination, a life questionnaire that will really challenge them to look at themselves and their lives in a unique way.

Most of my clients have come to me for assistance in increasing the revenue of their company, or help in getting on track to become financially free, so when the life questionnaire asks questions about things that seem to be out of that context, such as the quality of their relationship with their parents, their birth order, the quality of their sexual relationship with their spouse/ significant other. They are often confused, so what I have generally done lately is to warn or prepare them about the broad area of inquiry that the questionnaire deals with. After preparing my clients, the response from those that took the time to really think about and deeply reflect on the questions and answers has been almost unanimously positive.

Self-reflection or self-examination will always result in a positive outcome, even if you are not living up to your potential. The process almost always leads to a desire to improve in some area, most often in relationships with the most significant people in our lives, such as parents, children, or siblings, or to clear up personal mistakes from the past.

As I wrote the life questionnaire, I found myself constantly reflecting on how I could have handled certain situations better, and almost invariably, I was brought to a current circumstance, and received insight into how I could act in a more empowering way that would better the outcome. Deep reflection of our past often brings clarity to current situations, leading to powerful solutions and action steps. Reflection truly is a life skill that is worth learning, and mastering if abundance and happiness are your objectives.

Hiring a personal coach is also a powerful step in leading an abundant life, if you would like to set up a free initial session to see if my style and process will be beneficial to you please email me directly at coach@3win.com and I will contact you to set up a time that will work for both of us.

3Win… a statement of philosophy

I am asked all the time when people see my email address or my blog, “What does 3Win mean?”  The answer is a simple one, 3Win is about how I see the world, and how I choose to interact within the world, Win-Win-Win!  It is a philosophy of stewardship.  In my opinion this is the only way to live.  If we interact with others so that everyone is benefited by our interactions, the world becomes a more joyous place for you having been here, and we fill the earth with joy and light.

Zig Ziglar has a saying that I think is the essence of this ideal, and the core of the 3Win philosophy, “You can get anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want”.

In my way of describing 3Win, the priority is also important, the first order is the other person, this is because it is always from the other person that we are able to determine if value is earned and what that value is.  The second point to evaluate is the universal ideal, in other words, as Google suggests by their code of conduct “don’t be evil”.  This ideal can be described as ‘the environment’, ‘the Universe’, ‘Source, ‘God’, ‘others’, this is always the 3^rd party in any transaction.  The final point is that all interactions must be profitable for myself and in my best self-interest.  We may be able to create an exchange with another person that could be profitable for both parties, but damage the environment- this is not a 3Win transaction.

Many times we think things are in our self-interest, when upon deeper reflection, they are clearly not in out best self-interest, an example I use regularly is smoking cigarettes.  However, in discussing these ideas, the argument sometimes arises about a specific substance, even something quite healthful can be used for a purpose not intended by the original creators or marketers of the product.  My answer is… 3Win philosophy is grounded in intent.  For what intent was a particular product or service created, if it is good, then 3Win is possible, if it was originally good, then it is discovered that it is being used for bad, again, intent is where we must focus, as that is what ultimately creates the power in the 3Win life.  I choose (act on my intention) to live in 3Win, because it is the path to happiness, and happiness is in my best self-interest.

The essence of 3Win is to ask the question is this act or transaction sustainable, meaning can this same transaction take place forever without loss of destruction… a high standard, yes, a perfect guide, no, but it is a place to start asking the bigger questions, so that we start to see the impact we have on the world around us, both positively, negatively and in many other ways.

Am I saying it is immoral to consume, absolutely not, we are all consumers, but we must strive to produce more than we consume, especially if we have the capacity to produce.  A child will not be able to produce more than they consume at first, but is they are taught correct principles, and given the correct motivations (to serve others, toward mutual profit) then he or she will grow up to produce more than they consume, thus leaving the world a better place than they found it.

My choice to become an organic farmer is grounded in this philosophy.  I have been looking at and thinking about how best to serve others in my capacity as a producer of value, and it occurred to me that the foundation of all production comes from the earth… from dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return… from farming, mining, harvesting.  If I could add more value to the soil, and improve the land upon which I am a steward over, then the process of raising food, both animal and vegetable, can be sustainable, and thus 3Win.