LIving Life at Level 10

LIving Life at Level 10

Positive Affirmation - Ongoing Improvement

Here's a positive affirmation you can write down and
recite to yourself whenever you need a quick burst of
inspiration...

"Today, and every day I am making a commitment to
improve in some area of my life--either personally or
professionally. Each day offers up the chance to grow,
provided I am willing to dig in and put forth the
effort to do so. The skills I develop now will pay
great dividends as I move forward in the pursuit of my
endeavors--whatever undertakings I may choose.

Greatness is a part of who I am--this I believe with
all my heart. Through a combination of belief, followed
by a commitment to action, I am heading on the right
path which will lead to my attaining my own personal
definition of success. Of this I am certain!"



A Constant Essential...

"Commit to C A N I - Constant And Never-ending
Improvement."

SUCCESS — What Achievers Read. On Newsstands Now!

SUCCESS — What Achievers Read. On Newsstands Now!

Make Smart Decisions

You may find it difficult to exercise restraint when it comes to money because three variables come together to create a disaster. One is that the credit card has become the most aggressively marketed product in our culture. Second, our culture has become increasingly impatient. Third, we have become a very market-oriented society, surrounded with more images of what we “need to have” to be happy.

Improve Your Situation
To improve your situation, you must live on a written monthly plan—a budget. If you do, you might say, “Maybe I ought to be saving something. Maybe I can’t afford a vacation to Europe this year.” There are always trade-offs. The worst financial move you can make is to assume that you have to have debt to prosper. People who prosper avoid debt.

The Internet can be an awesome tool for planning and controlling your budget. The bad thing about the Internet is that there is impulse there to grab compulsive shoppers. But now when I go shopping for a car, I’m equipped with knowledge. So, it provides me with information when I am preparing to make large purchases.

If you have the discipline to pay credit card balances each month, you must have the cash. If you pay cash, you spend less because it hurts more. When you go to dinner and lay down a $50 bill, you realize you bought dinner. When you pay with a credit card, you do not emotionally register the expense and tend to spend more. Also, most people do not pay their plastic off every month, thus incurring debt and finance charges.

Avoiding Bankruptcy
Probably 80 percent of the bankruptcies that are filed don’t have to be. People freak out, get scared, don’t know what else to do. Finally they just lose hope. To avoid or get out of bankruptcy, you have to change the habits that cause the problem. Debt is really the symptom. The problem is living without a plan. So you end up buying stuff that you can’t pay for, or having emergencies for which you have no savings.

When you declare bankruptcy, your credit report is damaged for years, and it’s psychologically and spiritually traumatic. Financial failure is only when you quit. The trick is to have the overriding character quality of not quitting and learning from it.

Excellence in Action: Establish a budget and don’t give up.

Life's Journey

I’m fascinated by life journeys—how you get from one place to another, and how sometimes the journey brings you back home.

Journeys in life are far more random, far less orderly, than they seem at first glance. Paths that appear random, are random, especially when you are looking at them one step at a time. It’s only when you stand back and see the whole journey in perspective, the paths chosen, the paths rejected, a pattern emerges—a pattern that over time defines the journey of life.

At any moment in time you often can’t see where your path is heading, and logic and intellect alone won’t lead you to make the right choices; they won’t, in fact, take you down the right path. You have to master not only the art of listening to your head, you must also listen to your heart and gut. Look beyond the immediate choice of it all. It is too easy to freeze up at important moments.

In some ways, the world today, while far more prosperous, is actually far more complex and complicated than the one faced years ago. But have no fear, although fear is part of the journey as well, because you have all the tools you need up in your head, in your heart, and in your gut. All you really have to do is engage your heart, your gut, and your mind in every decision you make; engage your whole self, and the journey will reveal itself with the passage of time. See your life as a journey and pause at moments to see life’s patterns.

Engage Your Mind
Life teaches lessons in strange ways. The lesson I learned early in life was to love what you do, or don’t do it. Don’t make a choice of any kind, whether in career or in life, just because it pleases others or because it ranks high on someone else’s scale of achievement or even because it seems to be, perhaps even for you at the time, simply the logical thing to do at that moment on your path. Make the choice to do something because it engages your heart as well as your mind. Make the choice because it engages all of you. The freedom to choose is yours.

To make the most of that freedom, use your mind and your heart and your gut. Freedom to choose can sometimes feel like a terrible burden, but the burden is greatly lightened when you learn how to use your whole self, when you realize that you have everything you need for this journey of life. You can absorb knowledge, invent, and create.

Now, of course, for some of you, engaging all of yourself—your mind and your heart—is natural; it’s easy for you. You’ve known how to do it perhaps since birth. But for the rest of us, getting there is a process. It can take years, or decades. Some of us never get to know our whole selves, but we need to keep trying.

My own process of finding the soul to guide me brings me back once again to my parents. My mother was a stay-at-home wife and an artist, but my mother, more than anyone else, taught me about the power of aspiration and courage. She also taught me the world of dreams expressed in art, the world of things freed from the laws of everyday. And she did it with a strength and a passion that I wish could be bottled. Even when it wasn’t easy or convenient, both my mother and father were ultimately true to themselves. And I absorbed that lesson from them. Their definition of greatness was about greatness of character.

Think for a moment about all the people who have influenced you—your parents, grandparents, partners, guardians, friends—whoever has been a catalyst, whoever has had defining influence and lasting impact on your life, whether they truly know it, whether you really see it, whether you really fully feel its weight yet. Take a moment now and remember them.

Technology is only as valuable as the use to which it is put. In the end, technology is ultimately about people. And in this technology renaissance, we will witness and experience the transference of power to the people, to the masses—to the individuals who bring their own spark, their own energy to the process, technology becomes not about bits and bytes, but about the celebration of people’s minds and people’s hearts.

Become a Leader
What will it mean to be a leader in this world? How must leadership be re-invented to be commensurate with the opportunity?

Leadership is not about controlling decision-making. We don’t have time anymore to control decision-making. It’s about creating the right environment. It’s about enablement and empowerment. It is about setting guidelines, boundaries, and parameters—and then setting people free.

Leadership is not about hierarchy, title, or status; it is about having influence and mastering change. Leadership is not about bragging rights, battles, or even the accumulation of wealth; it’s about connecting and engaging at multiple levels. It’s about challenging minds and capturing hearts. Leadership in this new era is about empowering others to decide for themselves. Leadership is about empowering others to reach their full potential. Leaders can no longer view strategy and execution as abstract concepts, but must realize that both elements are ultimately about people.

Now, of course, traditional aspects of being a leader will continue to be important, like understanding the business or the institution, understanding the numbers or the assets, or pushing the right levers to bring about the right results. But the most magical and tangible ingredient in the transformed landscape is people. The greatest strategy, financial plan, or turnaround will only be temporary if it isn’t grounded in people.

There are small and large acts of leadership. And small acts of leadership can change the world as surely as large acts. Ultimately they can have as much effect on people’s lives as big ones. A mother who teaches a child inventive ways of thinking, who encourages her daughter’s professional desires, is performing a small act of leadership.

Believe in Yourself and Others
Our generation of leaders will know that everyone on this earth is born with the potential to lead. And that is a shift worth celebrating. A leader’s greatest obligation is to make possible an environment where people’s minds and hearts can be inventive, brave, human, and strong—where people can aspire to do useful and significant things.

At Hewlett-Packard we call this way of thinking, this set of behaviors, the "rules of the garage." You see, "the garage" is a special place to us—it is where we began. But these rules are about the way we compete and the way we work. And our rules are: Believe you can change the world, work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever, know when to work alone and when to work together; share tools, ideas, and trust your colleagues. No politics, no bureaucracy: These are ridiculous in a garage. The customer defines a job well done. Radical ideas are not bad ideas. Invent different ways of working. Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage. Believe that together we can do anything. Invent.

While they really are core to our culture, I believe that if you carry these rules with you on your journey, if you create an environment where people’s hearts and minds are fully engaged, where strategy is ennobling, where great aspirations are powered by the desires of people to do something worthwhile, you will touch many others.

Engage your whole self in everything you do. Leadership is not about you, but about the people who you are trying to inspire by unleashing their talents, their hopes, their aspirations. Leadership comes in small acts as well as bold strokes. Whatever is your passion, make sure people are at the heart of your endeavors.

Throughout this journey, the only limits that really matter are the ones you put on yourself. In crucial moments when you know what you need to do, but others advise against what they perceive to be a detour from your path, know yourself, trust your whole self, and don’t blink. If you do these things, when you look back, you will know that this journey was a wonderful gift and that you have made as much of this wonderful gift as you could have.

Excellence in Action: Make a list of your strongest leadership attributes and commit your whole self to some worthwhile quest.

4 Tips to Becoming More Productive

4 Tips to Becoming More Productive
1. Create a trusted system
Your system should be a clear and organized inventory of your commitments. Remember it has to work for you.
2. It's you not your time.
Understand effective time management is really self-management. Your goals need to show up on your radar in a useful way. Define and review projects as you move toward the goal line.
3. What's next?
Ask yourself, what’s the next action I should take? Repeatedly asking this question can help your prioritize what’s important and keep you moving forward.
4. When you think it, ink it.
Define actionable items into outcomes and concrete steps.
1 Tip to Change Your Life
Change your thoughts
The thoughts, images and words you replay in your mind everyday are directly related to your happiness and achievements. What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. Replace negative thoughts with a positive affirmation. Expect success.
3 Ways to Establish Your Life Vision
1. Start Dreaming and get going.
Create a snapshot of your ideal life with a bulleted list. A life plan will give you a clear direction and help you develop a strategy for getting there.
2. What are you good at?
List your skills and abilities you can build upon to attain your ideal life and then prioritize the development of those skills.
3. Keep your why in front of your eye.
Revisit your life plan frequently and keep it in plain view. Your life plan will remind you of what you want, what’s important and what to do next.

It's Not About Time

Most people admit they could use better time-management skills. But the issue of time management has not been addressed to universal satisfaction, because it really isn’t about managing
time. No one can manage time well enough to turn six minutes into five minutes. If it was just a matter of time, simply using a calendar and a watch would handle it. While a clock or calendar can give you a measure of control, it won’t provide the larger perspective needed for greater success—self management.

The savvy know self management is really an issue of what we do with ourselves during the time we have. Self-management needs to encompass managing our thoughts and emotions, and dealing effectively with our work, family and community relationships. It’s about gaining dynamic balance of control and perspective to achieve more successful outcomes and feel more relaxed along the way.

Self-management is about knowing what to do at any given moment. It’s dealing effectively with the things we have to do to achieve our goals and fulfi ll our purpose. It’s also about deciding the importance of the varied and constant information coming at us.

Dispense with the notion that time is harder to manage because there’s too much information. Many people are so chronically overwhelmed with new information they consider themselves roadkill along the information superhighway. Too much information is not the problem. If it were, we’d walk into a library and faint from the presence of so much data. We would run from the computer having gone just a few clicks into the results of a search, since each hyperlink leads to a seemingly infinite number of other Web pages. Information overload indicates we’re not managing our commitments effectively.

Self-management is about how we manage our commitments to achieve success at various horizons of focus in our lives. Horizons include life purpose, values, long and short-term goals, personal and professional areas of responsibility, projects and specific actions. As the CEO of your life, you’re in charge of the strategy and tactics needed to see your horizons clearly.

Self-management is about collecting, creating and deciding what (if anything) we want to do about each piece of information and organizing the results of that knowledge into a trusted system we can review appropriately. Upon review, we need to make intuitive strategic and tactical choices about our options.

A key aspect of self-management is how we handle all the things we’ve told ourselves we could or should do. People often keep several hundred hours of undone stuff in their minds (consciously or subconsciously) or in stacks on their desk or in the glove compartment of the car or their e-mail inbox. All of that unprocessed stuff may represent many projects and actions.

It’s hard to manage projects and actions unless they show up on your radar in a useful way. Projects need to be defined and reviewed as stakes in the ground to keep us moving toward their respective goal lines. The goal line for each project is the successful result. It could be as simple as “garden gate latch repaired,” or more complex like, “college degree earned.” The steps to move toward the goal line of success need to be defined by answering, “What’s the very next action that will move this project forward?” This is a method of executing elegantly and intuitively when the ball is snapped, instead of continually thinking about what to do next.

I ask people, “What’s the next action?” on big projects they’re procrastinating about. The answer often is, “Find time to….” You won’t ever have time to change your corporate culture,
write a book or lose weight until you define the very next action. If the next action is, “Pick a date and e-mail my assistant to set the senior team meeting about changing our culture,” you
can move forward on a major project in about two minutes. Getting Things Done is my work-life management system that will help you go from personal stress and being overwhelmed to an integrated system of focus and control. Getting Things Done is based on the common sense notion that a complete and current inventory of all your commitments—organized and reviewed in a systematic way—allows you to focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment.

The distinct practices include:

• Capture anything and everything that has your attention into a trusted system.
• Define actionable things into outcomes and concrete next steps.
• Organize reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on how and when you need to access them.
• Keep current with frequent reviews of the six horizons of your commitments (purposes,values, goals, areas of responsibility, projects and actions).

This systematic approach to self management has become essential in an age when people have more access to information, producing a sense that there is too little time.

Since one key to your competitive advantage is your ability to deal with surprise, let’s look at how self-management differs from time management in that regard. If you are simply managing your time, you may have blocked out part of the morning to make calls. So far so good. But let’s say that a few minutes before you are going to start making your calls, you hear from one of your best clients. This client wants to introduce you to another client who has the potential to bring you even more business. All you need to do is put together a brief proposal to deliver
that afternoon.

At that point you can choose to stick with time management, holding to the schedule you previously set for yourself. Or you can choose to look from a higher perspective, realizing that this new opportunity is more aligned with your long-term goals. With a list of your calls at hand, you can quickly scan to determine that none of them has to be done
today. You can shift your priority to the new client opportunity, knowing that it is the most appropriate place for you to focus your time. Self-management goes beyond time management, in that it allows you to respond at your best to surprises.

Most people say they have far more to do than time and energy allow. This outcomes-and-actions approach will help you get things done that are most meaningful to you. That’s the best way to manage yourself and your valuable time.

Four Seasons of Life

What will happen to you next month or next year? Whatever happens, you should follow certain overriding principles and predictable patterns.


As you enter this world, receive parental instruction, classroom instruction, and gain experience, you may set ambitious goals and dream lofty dreams. However, as the wheel of life turns, you are subject to human emotions and vicissitudes. You must learn to experience changing of lifecycles without being changed by them; to make a constant and conscious effort to improve yourself in the face of changing circumstances.

That is why I believe in the power and value of attitude. As I read about people, their deeds and their destiny, I become more convinced that it is our natural destiny to grow, succeed, prosper, and find happiness here and now in every season of life.

y your attitude, you decide to read, or not to read; try or give up; blame yourself for your failure or blame others; tell the truth or lie; act or procrastinate; advance or recede; and succeed or fail. The God-given gift of free choice enables you to select your own development and achievement—or your own destruction.

You are placed here on earth to develop yourself and enhance your environment. How fascinating that God would leave both projects—earth and people—unfinished! Across the rivers and streams, He built no bridges; He left the pictures unpainted, songs unsung, books unwritten, and space unexplored. To do those things, God created you and gave you the capacity to do some of these things. But it’s your choice. Attitude determines choice, and choice determines results. All that you are and all that you can become has been left to you. For as long as you live, you have the chance to work, and in the cycles and seasons of life, attitude is everything!

Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself.

Winter
The first lesson in life is to learn how to handle the winters. They come regularly. Some are long, some are short, some are difficult, some are easy, but they always come right after autumn. There are many kinds of winters: financial winters, social winters, emotional winters, and physical winters—the winter when you can’t figure things out, the winter when everything seems to go wrong, the winter of sickness or disappointment. So you must learn how to handle the winters—the difficulty that always comes after opportunity, the recession that comes after expansion. What can you do about winters? You can get stronger, wiser, and better. The winters won’t change, but you can.

Before I understood this truth, I used to wish it was summer when it was winter. When things were difficult, I used to wish they were easy. Now I don’t wish winter were shorter or easier, I wish to be wiser and better. I don’t wish to have fewer problems, I wish to gain more skills. I don’t wish for less challenge; I wish for more wisdom.

"Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself."
Spring

Fortunately, following winter comes a season of activity and opportunity called springtime. It is the season for entering the fertile fields of life with seed, knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort. The mere arrival of spring is no sign that things will look great in the fall. You must do something with the spring. Either plant in the spring or go begging in the fall. Take advantage of the opportunity that spring brings. Believe in the promise of spring: as you sow, so shall you also reap. Faith provides you with an irrevocable law: for every disciplined effort you make, you will receive a multiple reward. For each cup you plant, you reap a bushel; for every good you give to another, you shall receive many in return. For every act of faith, you receive many rewards; and for every act of love you show, you receive a life of love in return.

Remember that springtime presents itself ever so briefly. You can be lulled into inactivity by its bounteous beauty. Pause long enough to soak in the aroma of the blossoming flowers, but then get to work, lest you awaken to find springtime gone with your seed still in your sack. With the intelligence, wisdom, and freedom of choice, you can exercise the discipline to plant seeds—in spite of the rocks, weeds, or other obstacles. These won’t destroy all your seeds if you plant intelligently enough. So choose action, not rest. Choose truth, not fantasy; a smile, not a frown; love, not animosity. Choose to work when springtime smiles on your life and to enjoy the good in life in all things.

Spring shows us that life is truly a constant beginning, a constant opportunity. We need only to learn to look once again at life as we did as children, letting fascination and curiosity give us welcome cause to look for the miraculous hidden among the common. Get busy quickly on your springs, your opportunities. There are just a handful of springs that have been handed to each of us. Life is brief, even at its longest. Whatever you are going to do with your life, get at it. Don’t just let the seasons pass by.

Summer

In this season of life, learn how to nourish and protect your crops. As soon as you plant seeds, the busy bugs and noxious weeds are out to take things over. And they will take it, unless you prevent it. Know that all good will be attacked, and all values must be defended. Don’t ask why. Just know that it’s true. Let reality be your best beginning. Every garden will be invaded. Social values, political values, friendship values, and business values must be defended. Every garden must be tended all summer. If you don’t tend your garden, you’ll never have much of real value. But for those who make diligent efforts to plant, protect, and preserve, there are not enough birds, bugs, or other obstacles to destroy all the efforts of last spring.


Fall

Fall is the time to harvest the fruits of your springtime labor. You can learn how to reap in the fall without apology if you have done well and without complaint if you have not. Nothing is more exciting than bringing in a bounteous crop, and nothing more dreadful than facing a barren field in the fall. In all areas, what you put into this world, you get back from it. It is nature’s way of evening the score. So regardless of the results, take full responsibility for your crop. The highest form of maturity is accepting full responsibility for your life.

Life is constantly recycling itself, and part of your challenge is learning to change with the seasons and balance opposites: day/night, good/evil, life/death, water/land, summer/winter, recession/expansion, joy/sorrow. You face many challenges and changes, but you will continue to have one winter, spring, summer, and fall each year.

Success Each Season

Much of your success will lie in your attitude and ability to plant in the springtime of opportunity, to weed and cultivate in the testing time of summer, to harvest without apology or complaint in the season of fall, and to get stronger, wiser, better in the transition and learning times of winter. It is not what happens to you that determines your future—it is how you respond and what you do about it.



"I realized that the only way to live life and to lead life is actively and as active citizens

Grace Ebeid
www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/grace80
www.graceebeid.buildlastingsuccess.com

Any Question Please call me at:

(626)388-0402

7 Characteristics of Hope

Hope lights a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Hope opens doors where despair closes them.

Hope looks for the good in people instead of harping on
the worst in them.

Hope discovers what can be done instead of grumbling
about what cannot be done.

Hope draws its power from a deep trust in God and the
basic goodness of mankind.

Hope regards problems, small or large, as chances to
discover new blessings.

Hope cherishes no illusions, nor does it yield to
cynicism.



"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error,
change -- this is the rhythm of living. Out of our
overconfidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision,
fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."



"The pure, the bright, the beautiful
that stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth,
The longing after something lost,
The spirit's longing cry,
The striving after better hopes--
These things can never die."


Hope is much more than a positive attitude. Hope is
an essential attitude of expectancy filled with
potential. As Erik Erikson suggested in today's
quote, hope is an indispensable, life-sustaining
virtue.

Hope is a fundamental ingredient for accomplishment.
Henry Ward Beecher called hope "the greatest
architect". That's a great way to view hope--as an
architect of our tomorrows.

George Washington Carver wrote, "Where there is
no vision, there is no hope." Yet we must be willing to
give something in return. Benjamin Franklin cautioned
that a person who "lives on nothing but hope will die
fasting."

A farmer wouldn't plant the first seed if he or she did
not hope for a harvest. However, the farmer plans
extensively and works very hard all through the year.

Hope calls forth a thrilling vision that nurtures and
sustains action-building enthusiasm. It reminds us of
the reason for our dreams, guides our plans, and
supports the actions that turn our dreams into reality.

Think of all the time and resources you've invested in
your future. What is something you hope will happen for
you? Notice the image that your hope brings to mind.

Hold onto your hopes and treat them with special care.
Living hopes yield living dreams. When your faith is
strong, and your hands are ready, you will know that
your hopes helped to carry you every step of the way.


Wishing you blessings and success! :-)

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