Are You Teachable!

How do I maintain a teachable attitude?
By John C Maxwell

Teachability is not so much about competence and mental capacity as it is about attitude. It is the desire to listen, learn, and apply. It is the hunger to discover and grow. It is the willingness to learn, unlearn, and relearn. I love the way legendary basketball coach John Wooden states it: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
When I teach and mentor leaders, I remind them that if they stop learning, they stop leading. But if they remain teachable and keep learning, they will be able to keep making an impact as leaders. Whatever your talent happens to be – whether it’s leadership, craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, or something else – you will expand it if you keep expecting and striving to learn.
Futurist and author John Naisbitt believes that “the most important skill to acquire is learning how to learn.” Here is what I suggest as you pursue teachability:
1. Learn to listen.
American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak and one to hear.” Being a good listener helps us to know people better, to learn what they have learned, and to show them that we value them as individuals.
As you go through each day, remember that you can’t learn if you’re always talking. As the old saying goes, “There’s a reason you have one mouth and two ears.” Listen to others and remain humble, and you will learn things that can help you expand your talent.
2. Understand the learning process.
Here’s how learning typically works:
STEP 1: Act.
STEP 2: Look for your mistakes and evaluate.
STEP 3: Search for a way to do it better.
STEP 4: Go back to Step 1.
Remember, the greatest enemy of learning is knowing. And the goal of all learning is action, not knowledge. If what you are doing does not in some way contribute to what you or others are learning in life, then question its value and be prepared to make changes.
3. Look for and plan teachable moments.
If you look for opportunities to learn in every situation, you will expand your talent to its potential. But you can also take another step beyond this and actively seek out and plan teachable moments. You do that by reading books, visiting places that inspire you, attending events that prompt you to pursue change, and spending time with people who stretch you and expose you to new experiences.
4. Make your teachable moments count.
Even people who are strategic about seeking teachable moments can miss the whole point of the experience. I say this because for many years I’ve been a speaker at conferences and workshops – events that are designed to help people learn. But I’ve found that many people walk away from an event and do very little with what they heard.
We tend to focus on learning events instead of the learning process. Because of this, I try to help people take action steps that will help them implement what they learn. I suggest that in their notes, they pay special attention to
Points they need to think about
Changes they need to make
Lessons they need to apply
Information that they need to share
Then after the conference, I recommend that they create to-do lists based on what they took note of, then schedule time to follow through.
5. Ask yourself, “Am I really teachable?”
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: all the good advice in the world won’t help if you don’t have a teachable spirit. To know whether you are really open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, ask yourself the following questions:
Am I open to other people’s ideas?
Do I listen more than I talk?
Am I open to changing my opinion based on new information?
Do I readily admit when I am wrong?
Do I observe before acting on a situation?
Do I ask questions?
Am I willing to ask a question that will expose my ignorance?
Am I open to doing things in a way I haven’t done before?
Am I willing to ask for directions?
Do I act defensive when criticized, or do I listen openly for truth?
If you answered no to one or more of these questions, then you have room to grow in the area of teachability. You need to soften your attitude, learn humility, and remember the words of John Wooden: “Everything we know we learned from someone else!”
Your Coach
Bill

Don't Stop Believing!!!

"Don't Stop Believing" not only a Legendary Journey song,but
It is also the battle cry of our team for the next 12 months,we just finished our Pacific Northwest Winter Conference setting the whole team in to Belief and Excitement and ACTIVITY MODE,
Without question the results and feedback(see below) of the Kalahari and Harrison weekends are off the charts LETS keep it going, below are a few of the testimonies I got and a article that may help.
Hi Bill and Janice.
I was a little tongue tied while shaking your hand Bill at the end of the Harrison conference.
Wanted to say what a fabulous weekend this was. I loved Stanley because I'm an introvert like him. But I can change.
Also wanted to say Thank you for the opportunity to perform my music and for the wonderful prize. I very
much appreciate it.
Sincerely
Donna Olson

"Open Up To Your Dreams"

Awesome weekend got the nuggets to move our business forward thanks so much from cory & julee

Hey Bill and Jan I hope you had a great trip home. I just wanted to thank you both for your leadership and friendship and for what you continue to bring to the Pacific North West. The weekend was very impactful and I have gotten some great feedback, again thank you for being part of our lives Doug and Rosie

Thank you so much once again this weekend was phenomenal I believe this was the function that will move our team forward:) Tammy

Hi Bill,

This weekend was awesome! Angie and I felt like Wes and Ellie were there to speak to just us! We are committed to 12 months of activity so we can grow out of that room! Thanks again for all you and Janice do to provide an atmosphere for us to learn!

With love,

Matt & Angie



Changing Your Beliefs
One of the more frequently faced challenges experienced by athletes is performance enhancement. They express frustration that they often possess identical, if not superior, physical attributes to their competition, yet they're consistently being out performed by the competition. In many of these cases the factor that separates their performance from the competitions has been found to be rooted in their belief as to their ability to outperform the competition.
In other words they are operating with a limiting belief as to their athletic ability and level of their performance. Yet it is well documented that an individual's core beliefs in any given area of their life will ultimately determine the reality they draw into their life-positive, negative or stagnant.
So how does one go about changing a limiting belief to a positive one -- one that will result in improving your performance? It has been established by psychologists and neuroscientists that every person in the world carries on an ongoing dialog, or self-talk, of between 150 and 300 words a minute. This works out to between 45,000 and 51,000 thoughts a day. Most of out self-talk is harmless thoughts that serve our daily activities like, "I need to stop at the cleaners."
The danger is when inner dialogue takes on a negative connotation such as, "I'll never be as good an athlete as he is," "I don't have the mental toughness to compete at this level," or "I'll never be that fast." The ongoing negative reinforcement created by habitual negative self-talk results in the creation of a limiting belief(s) that goes on to become self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beliefs -- positive or negative -- are literally etched into our brain in comfortable grooves or neural pathways. Incoming data from our senses travel on these neural pathways on the way to interpretation in the brain. Therefore, if you desire to change an unresourceful/limiting belief into an empowering belief, you must rewire the negative neural track created in the brain.
This can be accomplished in precisely the same way the tracks were created: by using self-talk or, more specifically affirmations. An affirmation is a statement of fact or belief -- positive or negative -- that will lead toward the end result you expect. Anything that follows the phrase "I am," such as "I am a peak performance athlete" or "I am quick and agile," is an affirmation. The simplicity of affirmations often causes them to be overlooked. Nonetheless, affirmations are regularly used by professional athletes and successful business people.
The process for changing a limiting belief to a resourceful belief using affirmations is a simple one. First, identify the areas of your life which are not working to your satisfaction.
Next, write out the affirmations that represent things the way you desire them to be, they will be the vehicle for creating new resourceful/positive pathways.
Basic to formulating a new self-suggestion is that your affirmation is short and to the point -- simple enough that a five year old child will understand it -- and is always stated in the positive. Further, your affirmation should be stated in the present tense -- as if it has already happened, for example, "I am a strong athlete."
Now you are ready to begin your daily (minimum) reprogramming process:

• Sit upright in a comfortable chair.
• Close your eyes and take a couple of minutes to progressively relax.
• Release your body's tight sharp focus on the physical world by taking yourself to an even deeper level of relaxation.
• Speak your affirmation aloud from five to twenty times (depending on the time you have and the number of beliefs you are reprogramming).
By speaking your affirmation aloud you are down-stepping your thoughts to the brains electrical network to speech, and you are involving more of your brain by including two more of your senses: auditory and kinesthetic. It is important that you trust this process and give your affirmation(s) time to achieve their desired outcome. Worry or self-doubt as to whether your affirmations are working only conveys to your subconscious worry and the belief that your desire may not come to pass or the affirmation may not succeed. Be patient, success is on the way.
In conclusion, remember that your beliefs are what produce your life's experience and can lead you to performance enhancement, not the other way around. Orchestrate your beliefs using affirmations to create a life filled with successful experiences that reinforce the beliefs that created them
YOUR COACH,
Bill

What are your fears keeping you from!!!

What are your fears keeping you from;


In a speech in 1933, American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing a nation mired in a Depression and on the verge of a world war, famously stated, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” During the first century A.D., Epictetus said, “It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.” And in the 1600s, Francis Bacon remarked that, “Nothing is terrible except fear itself.”
Fear is universal. It crosses all boundaries of race, culture, religion and generation. We all feel fear. So why do some people appear to be fearless, doing battle with enemies that others cower before? Because they recognize that the greatest enemy they face is the fear itself. The first battle every hero faces is against fear and its weapons of destruction.
So how should we deal with fear? Avoiding it never really makes it go away; we either become paralyzed or defeated. Frantically searching for a quick fix usually just results in unfocused and wasted effort.
The only way to deal with fear is to face it and overcome it. Dale Carnegie explained it this way: “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” Here are some actions you can take to face and overcome fear:
Discover the foundation of fear
The fact is that most fear is not based on fact. Much of what we fear is based on a feeling. According to an old saying, “Fear and worry are interest paid in advance on something you may never own.” And Aristotle explained, “Fear is pain arising from anticipation of evil.”
When you acknowledge that the majority of fear is unfounded, you can begin to release yourself from its power. American general George Patton understood this. He said, “I learned very early in life not to take counsel of my fears.” Businessman Allen Neuharth saw his worst fears come true, only to realize that they weren’t as big as he’d imagined: “I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn’t fall down.”
Admit your fears
One of our biggest misconceptions is that courage equals a lack of fear. In actuality, the opposite is true. Mark Twain explained, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” By admitting our fear, we can then challenge its accuracy.
That’s how General Patton dealt with it: “The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision,” he said. “That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all of your fears and go ahead!”
Accept the frailty and brevity of life
Sometimes our greatest fears are founded on reality. For example, we are all going to die sometime. There’s no denying that. Likewise, life will often be hard and painful. Those things are completely out of our control. By accepting their reality, we can then focus on the things we actually can control.
I love what Gertrude Stein wrote about fear: “Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really frightening.”
Accept fear as the price of progress
“As long as I continue to push out into the world,” said Susan Jeffers, “as long as I continue to stretch my capabilities, as long as I continue to take risks in making my dreams come true, I am going to experience fear.”
To do anything of value, we have to take risks. And with risk comes fear. If we accept it as the price of progress, then we can take appropriate risks that yield great reward.
Develop a burning desire that overcomes fear
Sometimes the best way to fight fear is to focus on our reason for confronting it. Is it bigger than the fear? The firefighter runs into the burning building not because he’s fearless, but because he has a calling that is more important than the fear.
The person afraid of flying decides to confront it not because the fear has vanished, but because a meeting with a new grandchild awaits at the end of the flight.
Focus on what you can control
We cannot control the length of our lives; we can’t control many of the circumstances that we face. Accepting those facts allows us to focus on what we can control. Like American basketball coach John Wooden said, “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
As a leader, I often have to deal with the wrong attitudes and actions of the people who follow me. So a long time ago, I decided that,
I can control my attitude, but not others’ actions.
I can control my calendar, but not others’ circumstances.
And it’s not what happens to me, but what happens in me.
Focus on today
Fear tries to make us look at all of our problems at once: those from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. To be courageous, you have to focus only on today. Why? Because it’s the only thing you have any control over.
I love what a wise man once said about an ocean liner: If an ocean liner could think and feel, it would never leave its dock; it would be afraid of the thousands of huge waves it would encounter. It would fear all of its dangers at once, even though it had to meet them only one wave at a time.
By focusing only on what’s right in front of us, we can manage tremendous risk because we know we’ll only have to deal with it one wave at a time.
Put some wins under your belt
Just like fear tends to breed more fear, courage leads to more courage. According to Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
The more we face our fears, the more capable we begin to feel, and the more fears we are willing to face.
Do it now
Often, all it takes to conquer a fear is to change our focus and try some of the above suggestions. As we realize what’s true and focus on what we can control, the fear naturally fades and weakens. But there are other times, when no amount of thinking can overcome the fear. In fact, the more we think in those situations, the more fearful we become. Then, the only solution is action.
As W. Clement Stone said, “When thinking won’t cure fear, action will.”
It is the wise person who accepts that fear is a very real part of life, and it must be faced and overcome with courage. By taking action in the face of fear, he or she achieves results and becomes more courageous.
Another American president, Harry S. Truman, said it this way: “The worst danger we face is the danger of being paralyzed by doubts and fears. This danger is brought on by those who abandon faith and sneer at hope. It is brought on by those who spread cynicism and distrust and try to blind us to our great chance to do good for all mankind.”
Thanks John Maxwell for this.
Your Coach,
Bill

10 Great Tips for Your Marriage

10 Great Tips for Your Marriage;

Many good marriages slip into crisis because we don’t or won’t believe how much work it takes to keep relationships humming at optimal levels. Another reason is a simple failure in imagination.

But - if successful courting requires commitment, hard work and imagination to pull off… then why does it surprise us when neglect hurts relationships after we walk down the aisle? She wouldn’t have married you if you took her for granted - why risk everything now?

There are many good strategies if we want to restore an ailing – or “under the weather” – marriage. We suggest the following 10 for men who want to get the ball rolling:

#1 Pray for your spouse: Chances are you launched your marriage with both promises and prayers. Pray for your spouse, and ask for guidance as you pledge to make the kind of effort that simply won’t float without turning to God every day.

#2 Surround yourselves with people in healthy relationships: Some of those negative patterns involved friends. Hook up with a faith community where marriage is valued and there’s widespread support for making yours work.

#3 Choose to love: Love may have come easy when it was brand new. But love over the long haul is as much a choice as it is an emotion. Choice is an act of maturity and it has a much better track record than emotion left to make its way on its own.

#4 Act as if your spouse’s happiness is more important than your own: Putting our spouse first nurtures trust, gratitude, generosity and affection. It can also lead to kissing!

#5 Put the relationship ahead of everything, including your children: It’s unfortunate, but time has a way of eating away at our priorities. “You’re the most important thing in my life” gives way to “My work… the family business…the children… my aging parents… even golf, football or drinking…” Marriages don’t work well when our partner plays second fiddle to anything – even the children. It’s a fact - the happiest kids are those with parents who love one-another best.

#6Start over from scratch: Ask her out. Make sure you remember why you did the first time and build from there. When did you last talk for hours, hold hands at a movie, or smooch behind a plant in the mall? Get silly about one-another. If you don’t feel like it, do it anyway- then you’ll remember why.

#7 Stop taking one-another for granted: Say “thank you” for that cup of coffee. Celebrate obscure anniversaries. Tell her how much it means to you that she cooks a great meal – or vice versa. Notice the haircut. Ask her out. Clean her car. Pay attention to the little things and act like someone who values the relationship.

#8 Get counseling: You say you can’t afford it? Believe us, it’s cheaper than divorce! Most counseling simply involves a few sessions to get the communication flowing again. For guys, a willingness to talk in that context sends a huge positive message to your spouse.

#9 Follow the counseling with an action plan: Just like a personal fitness program, counseling comes with homework and an action plan over time. Draw up the plan, ask friends you trust to help hold you accountable, then follow through. When both spouses take responsibility, anything is possible.

#10Change the patterns: Do you always come home angry? Then stop the car a block away and pray about it first. Does she always nag you when you leave dirty clothes on the floor? Try getting changed in a different room and initiate a new reflex. Do you always fight about discipline? Try agreeing with her decisions and supporting her 100% - you may find the kids act better because you’re not fighting. You’ve heard the old joke

- Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do that…”

- Doctor: “Well, don’t do that anymore!
YOUR COACH,
Bill