Tag: Les Brown

YOU HAVE TO PAY ONE OF THESE BILLS 💵

I want to share with you a lesson I learned and some examples that came to my mind when I heard it. I was listening to some motivational/inspirational videos while on my way to work. This is a practice I recommend for everyone. You never know when you will either hear something new, or a reminder of something powerful you already know. This one falls into the latter category. In this particular video, the speaker referenced a quote from Jim Rohn, who I enjoy anyway. I am going to share that quote with you below.

The pain of discipline verses the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons. We can all grasp what that means to a certain point, but I wanted to give us a few real life examples to drive the point home. The first one that came to mind was eating pizza. Why? Mostly because I am always thinking of eating pizza. It is my favorite food to eat. If I could, I would probably have it seven days a week. Here is the thing. Eating pizza tastes good in the moment. It gives a quick boost of the ‘feel good chemicals’ in the brain. Putting off the urge to stuff your face with a delicious slice of sauce pie in favor of something slightly more healthy is not as fun. It takes…you guessed it, discipline. That’s a little painful. Say, ounces. If we are constantly giving in to the urge to eat pizza, or just unhealthy for that matter, we may feel good in the moment. Fast forward a year or so down the road. Our clothes have to be in a larger size. When we get out of the shower and look in the mirror, our hearts sink. We don’t feel as confident out in public. That is merely the outside. Inside, our arteries are clogging. Our heart is being forced to pump harder and our liver is working overtime dealing with the processed food. We can find ourselves depressed about how we look daily, or in the emergency room dealing with a heart issue. Then we would feel…regret over our choices. That ways a ton.

There will be actually two more quick examples. This can help us grasp this concept better and see where we are paying tons instead of ounces. Working out is another great example. Going to the gym is not fun for most people. It is stressful on the body, you get exhausted (although you actually gain energy on the back end) and you get sweaty and gross. (except for my lady who manages to look amazing after a workout) Taking time to go to the gym and spending the effort to put in a workout takes discipline. Especially when you really don’t feel like it. A life devoted to sloth and binge watching Netflix sounds more appealing on the surface. That takes very little discipline. You don’t have to pay those ounces. What happens as you grow older? Your bone density weakens and you are more likely to fracture something should you fall. It takes you far longer, and for more breath, to simply climb a flight of stairs. You must sit out times with your children and grandchildren, letting those memories slip away. You regret not keeping yourself in better shape. That weighs tons.

Our last example hits home for many of you after the holidays. Credit cards. They are super dangerous because they allow us, temporarily, to live beyond our means. “You mean I can get this thing even if I do not have the money yet?” is the thought many have. It can remove the pain of being disciplined and waiting until you earn enough for it. Those who like to skip the ounces required when it comes to paying your bills can find their credit card debt climbing. What starts to happen is the interest and late fees take up most of your payment with very little going to the actual amount owed. You look regretfully at the new pink Stanley mug, or whatever you bought. Suddenly, you find yourself pondering taking advantage of some of the bankruptcy lawyer commercials you see on television. As you can see in the picture above, that regret can feel like a ton of weight on your back.

Think of examples in your own life where you chose the weight of regret over the weight of discipline. You may feel like you are escaping in the moment, but it seldom leads to a good outcome. It reminds me of a quote by another amazing speaker, Les Brown. When people first hear this quote, they may not understand it, or dismiss it, but the examples above prove it to be quite valid.

LET US CLOSE IT OUT RIGHT! 🏁

I have to confess something. When I first began this journey of self-improvement, saying like this drove me crazy. “You have to be something before you can have it.” “You have to feel abundant, before you can be abundant.” None of this made sense to me. How can you feel abundant, when you are not? How can you feel fit when you are not? It is really about being on the same frequency as that which you desire. Another saying that made little sense to me when I started out, so let me break it down a little further for you. When you identify as someone who is ‘healthy’ but your body says that you could be a spokesperson for a value meal, how does that compute? Simple, you have to start somewhere. When you are beginning to be something new, you are still starting from where you were.

Here are a few more terms to confuse us. Energy, frequency and vibration, what do they all mean? Nikola Tesla was a genius, and I am sure he could explain it far better than I could. We could look into how at its core, everything is energy and the way of measuring an objects frequency is cycles per second or how often an object vibrates in a repetitive motion. Anyone up for that discussion? Me neither. I would much rather refer to these three in terms of ‘identity’. When you identify as a healthy person, you have that frequency, vibration and energy. Here is the tricky part, when shifting energies, the old energy does not give up very easily. However, if you truly want to identify as a healthy person, that is powerful. There are few things as powerful to a person as their sense of identity.

If you begin telling others, and more importantly yourself, that you are now a healthy person, you will act and think in a certain way. You will begin to eat to fuel your body and not just to entertain your taste buds. You will look at fitness as something you get to do and not something you have to do. If, you find yourself in the drive thru at McDonalds, it may occur to you this is not something a healthy person would do…several times a week. That is the problem with the “6 -minute abs” way of thinking. Diets and fitness fads do little to change the identity of the person involved. Therefore, their success will be both limited in terms of success and duration.

As we close the year out, let us work on a more powerful sense of identity for ourselves. At the end of the day, it is something we determine for ourselves. This, is one of the main stepping stones for a lot of people in this social media world. We pay far too much attention to other people’s opinions. Les Brown has a saying, “Never let someone’s opinion of you become your reality.” This is especially true when starting something new. When you are beginning a new journey, people are all too happy to point out where you were or how far you have to go. “You are going to be healthy? The guy who ate an entire pizza at the holiday party?” That is who you were, not who you are going to become.

One way to help change our identity, is to change our perspective. Like the quote that began this post. As we look to increase our abundance this coming year, let us start with gratitude for all we have. Take money, which is only a portion of abundance. Do you know the average global income is $12,235? I didn’t either. Most of you reading this make more than that. Therefore, you are closer to being wealthy than poor. You have access, in some form or fashion, to the internet. That is better than 35% of people. Do you have clean water to drink and bathe in? Better than 25% of the world’s population. Do you have all 3? You are abundant my friends. Start looking up how many people have laptops, how many people have 3 meals a day. The list can go on. By the time you are done, you will discover how truly abundant you are. Then, you will be on that frequency, vibration and energy. You will identify as an abundant individual. This puts into play your subconscious mind and your reticular activating system in your brain. More science that I make simple in my book, Living the Dream. Until you read that great book, just know if we change our identity, we change our reality. Read that last line again and think how you can put it to work for you.

NO IT DOESN’T SUCK! 🍭

The other day, I had one of those days. You know the ones. A day where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. In fact, even some things that I did not know could go wrong, went wrong! I worked for hours on a press release only to discover it was the wrong format and would not work. I wrote a really nice blog and published it only to discover I forgot to save the second half before I pushed “publish”. This means it was deleted and now I had a half-written blog out there. At the end of this day, I was finally home relaxing and about to eat dinner on the porch with Margie. I had a can of sparkling green tea. I pulled the tab and can you guess what happened? Nothing! The tab came off and the can was still closed. I stared in disbelief at the can that had added its own bit of betrayal to my already trying day. Did I scream or shout? Did I get disgusted and start to complain about one more thing going wrong? No. I laughed hard and long.

It is not that I am delusional or like a day filled with personal inconveniences. I just knew that getting upset about being betrayed by a can of green tea would only add stress to my life. It would not even help me open the can. Which I did with the end of my fork so I would not add cutting my hand to the challenges of the day. Did my day suck? I guess you could say so. Events turned out the opposite of the way I was hoping it would.

Whenever I have a day that goes south of expectations, I am reminded of something the great Les Brown said. He said, “Never say you are having a terrible day. Say you are having a character building day.” To some of you this may sound like a positive thinking, splitting hairs way of looking at things. To some extent, it is. That is life though. Your language goes a long way to determining your attitude. The only thing we have complete control over is ourselves and our way of looking at the world. Getting upset over situations in which we have no control makes as much sense as trying to keep the sun from setting. (An event I may have tried when I was younger) If you are finding things in your life that seem to suck, remember you have complete control over how you look at your life and the things in it. With a change in your attitude, and an increase in your gratitude, life can feel a whole lot better. Even if your can of green tea doesn’t open on the first try.

DON’T TRY TO CHANGE THE WEATHER, LEARN TO SWIM

I was listening to Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers today. He said something I think we can all relate to. He said, “In life, you are either going into a storm, in the middle of a storm or just came out of a storm.” That may sound a bit negative, but that does not make it any less true. It seems the storms of life seem to come one right after another. There are moments of sunshine between them for sure, but another one is always around the corner if we wait long enough.

Much like the meteorological storms, we also try to predict the storms in our life. Just like they do on the weather channel, we gather information. We look at patterns and past performances. Much like the conclusions on the weather channel, they are right…some of the time. We might be able to predict the storm, but that does little, if anything, to change the fact the storm is coming. They never try to change the weather on the weather channel. You never hear them say, “Everyone point your fan in one direction so we can pull up warmer air.” Trust me, I have thought of this. Why, in life, do we try to change the weather? We fight against the storms with other people. We fight against change itself. As if we can stop these things from happening.

We can spend an entire life doing our best to avoid or run from the storms in the ocean of life. They will find us or catch up to us at some point. That time would be much better spent learning to swim. What do I mean from that? If you know that eventually you will be in a storm, you really have two options. You can hope that the storm is easy, or that it passes you over entirely. Hope is a redeeming quality, but seldom a good strategy. Your other option is to learn skills that can help you not only survive the storm, but thrive in it. In other words, you can learn to swim.

Many of you might be thinking, “Ok, that makes sense. Next time that I see a storm coming, I will work on the skills that will help me make it through.” Let us return to our analogy of the weather. Does mother nature ever call you to ask, “I plan on raining this week. When would be good for you?” I am not sure how it works in your life, but mother nature must think the time I enjoy rain is when I have an outdoor activity planned. Just like the weather, the storms of life can pop up unexpectedly, at any time.

While being interviewed for the show Positively Milwaukee, I asked the question, “When is the best time to learn how to swim? When you are on the shore or when the boat is sinking?” Little did I know, only a year later I would benefit from my own advice. I had to undergo emergency open-heart surgery. The healthy lifestyle I had been living went a long way in helping me make it through that. Had I waited until I was told that I needed surgery to start living a healthy lifestyle, it would have been too late. The same is true in any challenge of life. The longer you wait to start preparing for the storms of life, the chance it will be too late increases. Start developing your skills today. The storm could come tomorrow. Take that swimming lesson today.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY APPEARANCE ON THE SHOW “POSITIVELY MILWAUKEE”

DON’T RUN FROM IT, RUN THROUGH IT🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

When you are facing a tough challenge in life, it can be very tempting to run away from it. That will not facilitate growth of any nature. It is not our fault that we are predisposed to do this. Our brains are wired to avoid pain. I have learned two things about the storms of life from Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers. He said you are in one of three situations. You are about to enter a storm, you are in the middle of the storm, or you are just leaving a storm. This may sound a bit doom and gloom, but there are always challenges in life. Another thing he said is that there is too much pain in life to duck. No matter where you hide, it will find you. Don’t want to pay your credit card bill? They will find you and chances are, you will end up owing more.

The above quote from Wilma Mankiller seems counter intuitive, but it really is a secret to reducing stress in life. Your brain may be screaming “Get me the hell out of here!” That is the opposite of what you want to do. By running away from a problem, you only prolong it. Not to mention, you have the stress of knowing the challenge is still hanging over you. Conversely, if you run headlong into the challenge, you actually shorten its duration. It may be uncomfortable at first. No, actually it will be uncomfortable. The stress you will go through initially, will reduce the stress you feel long-term.

It can be so tempting to run from your problems, but doing so only makes them last longer and become bigger. Face them. Run through them like the buffalo. You will find that your life contains a lot less stress than if you would spend it trying to avoid problems. As an added bonus, you will have tremendous growth of character that you would not get by avoiding the storms of life.

TODAY IS THE DAY!!🥳

After months of work and hype, today is the day my third book, The Beat Goes On, is released to the masses. I will be hosting a book signing event locally at Urbal Tea if any of you would like to stop down. In addition to celebrating this fun moment in time, I would like to look back at how we got here, as well as look forward to what I hope to accomplish with this book.

Let us begin by looking at how we arrived at this book. I would like to remind everyone what my English teacher told me right before I graduated high school. She looked me in the eyes and said, “I hope to God you will never have a career in writing.” In her defense, I might have said the same thing at the time. I was not the best literary student. I still define myself as the author that keeps editors employed. This does, however, remind us that we should not allow others to define our paths in life. As well-meaning as they may be, nobody knows what is best for us except our own hearts and minds. If this memory would have occurred to me before I completed my first book, the self-doubt that comes with such a task may have overwhelmed me. I was also told by one of my customers at the post office that I should not hope to sell more than 12 copies. To date, that book has sold over 500 copies in several countries.

I would also like to talk about how this latest book is different. My first two books, which also includes Living the Dream, were sharing the secrets I have both learned and discovered in my 2 decades in the self-improvement field. They are instructional, and offer great tools and strategies to help all of us to live a more rewarding and positive life. As I was using those very strategies and improving my life, it was turned upside down. I underwent open-heart surgery and had a brief flirtation with death. This experience was both frightening and enlightening at the same time. It was suggested by the love of my life, Margie, that sharing this experience would not only help others, but do a great deal to keep my sanity during the months of anxiety leading up to the procedure, as well as the frustration of healing.

This latest book is not only the story of this portion of my life, but a reaffirming of what was taught in the first two books. If it were not for everything I had learned in the 46 years leading up to that moment, I would have never been able to make it through. I had a chance to not only share what I went through and calm the fears of those who may have to go through the same procedure, but to also share what tools and strategies I used and how. It is my hope this book will not only entertain you with the stories from the hospital and my life, but convey how important and all-encompassing working on yourself and your life can be. In my case, it actually saved my life. The same might be true for you. As I say in the book, and often in life, the time to learn how to swim is on the shore, not when the boat is sinking. Be prepared for when life throws you a challenge.

In closing, just remember to never let anyone define what you can or can’t do. I think Les Brown said it best when he offered, “Someone’s opinion of you does not have to be your reality.” Read that statement whenever you are experiencing doubt because of what some well-meaning person may have said. Also, remember that sharing your story will help both those who may go through the same thing as well as your own sanity as you make it through. Mostly, I want you to know the time to work on living an amazing life and becoming an amazing person is now. Life seldom, if ever, gives us a warning before it turns upside down. If you wait until then to strengthen your health, your relationships and your inner peace, it may be too late. You can find great secrets to do so in any of my books which are all available on Amazon. Just click the link below to be taken to my author page.

CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO MY AUTHOR PAGE😀

EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS ONCE IN THEIR LIFE

This post could have been titled many different things. “My secret to happiness” and “23 years of training” were other considerations. Let’s talk about the title i did choose. “Everyone should do this once in their life. ” What should everyone do once in their life? I think everyone should work a job in retail at least once in their life. You should do this for several reasons.

The first reason is that you will have a lot more compassion for people who work in retail. When you may feel tempted to yell at a store clerk during the holidays or demand the coffee shop employee creates your beverage with a certain amount of ice cubes or anything that involves fractions, you will reconsider. You will personally know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that.

The other reason to work a job in retail is to expose yourself to as many different people and ideas as you can. Like anything in life, this can either drive you crazy or make you more open-minded and compassionate. It may be one of the best ways that I know to meet people in many different fields and with many different beliefs. You may discover things that you never knew you enjoyed about some of your fellow human beings. It is good training on managing your emotions when it comes to these same fellow human beings. It will also train you, if you use it for this purpose, on managing your own emotional well-being.

I was a bartender for 23 years. My next book will be my journey from that profession to self-improvement author, speaker and blog writer. In this profession, and just in life in general, one of the questions I get a lot is, “How can you be happy all of the time.” The short answer is that I am not. Margie can certainly attest to that. It also would make life pretty boring. We learn most when we go through challenges. That is where the growth comes from. The goal in life should not be to be happy 100% of the time. You will never achieve that and it may even increase the feelings of failure you have. The goal should be to reduce the frequency and intensity of the times you are not. You should also endeavor to learn from every situation you experience in life.

Learning from everything in life is what I do my best to do. I am always trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. When I think about what allows me to feel upbeat most of the time, a lot of things come to mind. First is gratitude. Developing a attitude of gratitude is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. Surrounding yourself with what Les Brown calls OQP, or only quality people. These are the ones who will both encourage you and hold you accountable. Developing a routine of self-care is another thing that will pay dividends in the long run. I recommend all of these steps to each and every one of you reading this, but it was something I learned on my first day of bartending that made a huge difference.

Jimmy G was the man who trained me. He was one of the most respected bartenders in the city and taught me many things that I will never forget. I had the good fortune to work with and under several amazing men. One of the things Jimmy told me was “Nobody cares about your problems.” He went on to explain that you never want to walk into a bar with a depressed or even indifferent bartender. Whatever is happening in your life, for the time you are behind the bar you must put it behind you. “When you are done working you can go back to being sad, mad or whatever else you are dealing with. When you are behind the bar, you must act as if it is the greatest day of your life.” I used this same manner of thinking when it came to working the window area of the post office. Even if people dealt with me for a mere 60 seconds, I wanted it to be the best 60 seconds of their day.

What I learned by being ‘happy’ for an eight hour bartending shift, is that you can emotionally compartmentalize many emotions. I was forced to learn many methods and find the ones that worked for me. Doing this for the time I was working taught me that I could still have things crumbling down in my life and manage a positive outlook. In doing so, it allowed me to see opportunities and solutions I may have missed if I was in the whirlwind of negative emotion focused on what is wrong. This is a skill that has stuck with me. I am grateful for the chance to learn it. Having a positive outlook, even one that may be just ‘show’ for the public, can help us see ways in which to do so authentically.

MINDSET OF THE BEST

If you have followed me for any length of time, you know I am a fan of many different authors and speakers. Today’s post is courtesy of one such individual, David Goggins. David is a raw and real speaker that may be offensive in his language to some. He does, however, have a wealth of knowledge and great information. One of my favorite subjects he speaks on is the mindset of greatness. His best comparison is that of a job interview. When we are first interviewing for a job, what do we do days, weeks or even longer before? We make sure our clothes are ready, have our coffee cup out, a breakfast ready to be made. In short, we are preparing to make it as easy as possible to bring our best self to the interview. It usually works, and we get the job. What happens several months to a year down the line? We no longer put our clothes out the night before. Maybe our breakfast isn’t ready. Perhaps we are a few minutes late because we had to wait for the coffee to brew. We become comfortable. We have the job and so why spend the time doing all of the extras?

This can happen even sooner for some of us. It is a natural sort of progression. Should the company face the prospect of having to downsize, or we hear a rumor that we might lose our job, then we amp up our efforts once again. Of course, once that threat lessens or goes away entirely, we are back to going through the motions of going to work and coming home. Les Brown, another favorite speaker, once said we do enough at a job not to get fired, and they pay us just enough not to quit. That may very well be true. Another fact is that if you are looking to be promoted or to get a raise, all you need to do is to do more work than is required for you. Companies will not want to lose an employee with that mindset. They will do everything they can to hang on to someone who is willing to ‘go the extra mile’.

Our job is not the only place this thinking shows up. One of the places were we tend to do this the most is in our intimate relationships. When we are trying to win someone’s affection, or shortly after we do so, we act a certain way. We send flowers for no reason. We are more likely to do things for that person without complaint. Fast forward being together for years and what happens? We, almost subconsciously, take the relationship, if not the person, for granted. We think to ourselves that area of our life is ‘handled’ and we can place our energy elsewhere. We start to compliment them less. Maybe we show less affection. When they ask us to do something, it feels more like a chore.

Much like our job, if a challenge arises, so do our efforts. If the person we are with suddenly has an attractive new coworker, or maybe they do something that indicates they might be thinking of moving on, then we begin to put more effort into our relationship with them. Maybe we come home with some flowers. We might take time out of our work day to send them a loving text or perhaps a quick call. Once we become comfortable again, our efforts may start to dwindle. If you want a more amazing and deeper relationship, the steps are the same as getting a promotion or raise at work. All we have to do to take our relationships to the next level is go the extra mile. In short, do all of the amazing things we did when we were trying to win them and we will only serve to strengthen and deepen the relationship we have.

A good bonus of this thinking is that there should be more ideas the longer you are together. In the years Margie and I have been together, I have learned many new things that make her happy and feel loved. In some cases, I have been there when she discovered them for herself. I was able to do so by active listening. This means every day I am consciously on the lookout for those things that bring joy to the heart and a smile to the face of the woman I love. This took some effort and reminding myself in the beginning, but now it is second nature to me. The rewards of this have been worth their weight in gold. At any time I have a growing list of things I can do, say or make happen that will not only make her happier, but strengthen and deepen her love for me. I confess, I should probably be doing this more often, but as our love continues to grow so does the opportunities to make it grow.

Don’t worry if you have been guilty of falling into these ruts. We all do so to some degree. The secret is being able to recognize that and to pull ourselves out of them. Another way to look at this – the longer you have been in this rut and the deeper you are, the greater the opportunity for improvement! When you begin to look for and do the little extras, your life, your job and your relationships, both intimate and others, will transform before your eyes! I would love to hear what other areas of your life you feel this could come in handy.

YOU CAN CHANGE, JUST STAY FOCUSED

There is a thing that Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers, says. When referring to his health journey and his battle with the temptation of sweet potato pie he says this, “I have lost 22 pounds, hundreds of times.” I think a lot of us can relate to that statement. What it means is that he lost the weight and then gained it back. Then he had to refocus and get back at it. Life is like that in many ways. Take getting in shape for example. Another speaker and author I admire a great deal is David Goggins. In his quest to go from 297 pounds to 185 and become a Navy seal he had a lot of training to do. On the first day he decided to run four miles. Being someone who weighs almost 300 pounds and didn’t do much cardio, you can imagine how this went. He ran a quarter of a mile, stopped turned around and walked back home. When he got there he sat on the couch and cried. It is ok to feel sorry for ourselves…for a little while. The next day he tried again with similar results. At this point many people would give up. That would be understandable. He did something different. He changed the plan and not the goal. He said to himself, “Ok, I cannot run. What can I do?” He began to ride a bike. Then he added swimming. Soon he lost some wait and was able to run a mile, then three, then six. Now he is one of the best ultra marathon runners there is.

Whether it is someone like Les Brown, David Goggins or Thomas Edison who went through countless experiments to invent the lightbulb, they all have one thing in common. What is that trait that allowed all of these men to end up a success when life would have had them believe they were destined to fail? The didn’t give up. The stayed focused on the goal. Failure is only permanent if we give up. If we don’t, failure serves as a teacher. It can tell us the way we are going about something isn’t working. That doesn’t mean the goal can’t be reached. All that it means is we have to adjust our plan. Often, even mistakes can be valuable. There is the rather well known story about how post-it notes were developed. The inventor was working on creating an adhesive that would last forever. He obviously failed in that endeavor, but look what it created!

Next time it feels as if you are failing at something in life, remember it might just be the plan that needs changing and not the goal. Look for the lessons in the failure and start again only more well-informed.

I’VE BEEN A THIEF FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS! (and why you should be too)

In the last two decades of my self-improvement career I have become quite a thief. Some of the greatest people in history are thieves as well. Albert Einstein, Oprah Winfrey, and both Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn. When I say that both myself and these greats of history are thieves, I do not mean stealing ketchup when you are three years old and your mother has to take you back to the store to explain and return it. For that you would have to get some clarification from my lovely Margie. When I say that myself and these other wonderful folks are thieves, I mean of the information variety.

As you can see Mr. Einstein gave credit to those who have went before him and used it as motivation to further his work. Can you imagine if everything in the scientific and mathematical community had to be relearned every generation? If we had to go back to square one? Relearn Newton’s laws of physics? Rediscover the periodic table? This would have ripple effects on the medical profession, meteorology, zoology and many other ‘ologies’ that I can’t even think of. What we do is build on and learn from the knowledge of the generations before us. We learn their discoveries and make our contribution. Different generations can look at the same information each from their own unique perspective. They can also present it in their own way and with their own words. This will bring the information to light in a whole new way to an entirely different audience. Without stealing this information, very little advancement or new discoveries would be made.

Nowhere is this more true than in the field of self-improvement. One of the gentleman in the photo above most of you know. That would be Tony Robbins. My self-improvement journey and consequently career was inspired, in part, due to Mr. Robbins. I found myself staring at the television in the very early hours of the morning while getting ready for work at the post office when one of his famous infomercials came on. Perhaps it was lack of sleep, or maybe it was just the right moment, but I felt the desire to order one of his tapes and see what all of this was about. Over 20 years later and I find myself speaking and giving my own seminars. The more of a teacher or mentor you become in the field of self-improvement, the more of a student you become. Every day I read, listen to audio or watch video of other teachers. On an ambitious day I do all three. The other man in the photo is Jim Rohn, the gentleman who taught Tony Robbins. When you listen to Tony, you hear a lot of what Jim would teach, but with Tony’s flair and added knowledge. Jim, on the other hand, learned from a man named J. Earl Shoaff.

All of these gentleman ‘stole’ a little from each other. Perhaps a better word would be the modeled them. They listened to the words earned through years of wisdom each man had. It gave them knowledge that would have taken them years to learn on their own. Les Brown, another one of my favorite speakers, quotes so many other teachers and mentors that my head starts to spin. Oprah Winfrey has had the unique opportunity of interviewing some of the greatest minds of our time. She gladly shares things she has learned from them.

And then there is me, who has stolen knowledge from all of these men and more! I have learned discipline and overcoming odds from the likes of David Goggins, former Navy Seal. I have learned the art of being a good interviewer as well as the knowledge from all the great guests on Impact Theory ( I highly recommend looking that show up) Hosted by Tom Bilyeu. I even try my best to steal nuggets of wisdom on nature from my good friend Shannon, philosophy from my friends Nick, Amanda and Russ, the benefits of nature and rock-n-roll from my friend Eduardo and of course my beautiful Margie and I spend every day sharing and learning from each other.

I am encouraging you to become a knowledge thief now. Whatever field you are interested in or pursuing, there is information out there. Your library is full of books, YouTube has millions of videos. There are podcasts, webinars, seminars and audio available. Search out this information that is being shared and steal some for yourself. Here is the best part. When you share that knowledge with others, you will do so in your special and unique style. It will reach people who may never have been touched by a Tony Robbins or Les Brown. Your words might touch a special place in someone’s heart that nobody else could. Before long, people may begin stealing from you.