Better Than Your Best

In my recent book, “Your Better Self: A Simple Guide to Where You Want to Be,”I cite Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues as being an excellent beginning for your journey toward manifesting your worthy aspirations and becoming your better Self. I’d like to share now Ben’s friend, Thomas Jefferson’s, 10 Rules that helped guide him to the astounding achievements credited to him.

Let me know if you think there is value to how he lived his life. Do you think you can benefit from organizing your life around the following?

1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend money before you have earned it.
4. Never buy what you don’t want because it is cheap.
5. Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We seldom repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How must pain the evils cost us that never happened.
9. Take things always by the smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.

Each week, especially Mondays, brings with it a slew of emotions accumulated from all the weeks and Mondays in the past.

Mondays are usually greeted, if not with a sense of downright dread, then with a less than enthusiastic attitude and a low-grade anxiety. It’s like going through a briar patch – as you travel through it, more and more burrs from the branches stick to your clothing. As you accumulate more “attachments” (physical, mental and emotional) as you go through life, the spiritual speed with which you travel decreases and the goals you set for yourself begin to loom loftier and soon appear to be bigger than your ability – and now your desire – to achieve them.

Monday is your cue to start fresh by casting off your psychological anchors that are weighing you down and holding you back from achieving your worthy aspirations. Every Monday, begin the week with these words: “If it is to be it is up to me.” Sound familiar? Hackneyed? Stale? Only if you’ve never tried it.

Click here to read Paul’s comments on what has recently happened in America.

Please comment on his blog – and here, as well.

Ken

One Christmas, when my son was seven years old, he received a gift that I thought he would love – a harmonica. The moment he opened the present revealing the harmonica he looked up to see me pointing a camera at him. He smiled as big as he could while proudly holding the box in one hand and gently touching the harmonica with the other. He looked completely happy to get the harmonica.

Immediately after the photograph was taken, however, he threw one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen him throw. He screamed, tossed the harmonica to the floor, ran through all the rooms of the house crying that we really didn’t love him.

Perplexed, I asked, “What’s the matter? You looked so happy to get the harmonica. Why did you smile so big when you opened it up? He said, “Because I didn’t want to ruin the picture!”

We paint the picture we have of ourselves in the actions and attitudes we exhibit. This is another way of saying that what’s on the inside eventually finds its expression on the outside.

What self-portrait are you painting today with your actions and attitudes? Is it your better Self – or something less?

After his mother’s funeral, I received a letter from a member of the congregation. In part, it read:

“Earlier in the week while thinking about writing to you, something became clear to me that I hadn’t realized before. In the past, when considering how much to give for a special offering, Mom would ask me how much we were giving. I would suggest a specific amount and she would suggest a larger amount, usually double what I suggested. I just assumed that she thought that we should give more than I suggested. I now realize that she initially was inquiring as to how much I wanted to give, then she was saying, ‘I want to give, too!’ I have already indicated my gift. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Mom was here she would suggest that we give double the amount I indicated we should give. Therefore, I am enclosing an amount equal to what I gave for Mom. She wouldn’t want it any other way.”

What you give (I’m not talking just about money) often becomes the baseline for what others give. If you want others to give more, give more yourself.

The following comes from an annual report of Hewlett-Packard. Succinct and True!

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. Trust your colleagues.
No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in the 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.

There are six questions you need to ask in making your plans to solve any problems you face and to improve anything about your life. Here they are – and why you need to ask them:

1. Why am I here? This question focuses on defining the problem.

2. What do I want? This question focuses on defining the outcomes.

3. How can I get it? This one concentrates on defining a practical plan.

4. Who else is involved? This questions identifies the other players in both the problem and the solution.

5. When will I get this completed? Define the deadline.

6. Where will this problem be resolved most easily? This question focuses on logistics and identifies the optimal place(s) where the best solutions might arise.

These are the same questions that can be asked in team problem solving endeavors. Soon, your plan will emerge and be worthy of your best efforts.

Did you ever stop to think it is possible to have a map and a compass and still be hopelessly lost? A map and compass are completely useless until you know the fifth point of the compass – where you are now.

That is why it is so important when you write out your goals and your plans to appraise yourself honestly to find out exactly where you stand and how you feel about yourself now:

- in relation to your income goals, where are you now?
- in relation to your physical and mental goals, where are you now?
- in relation to your social, family, and spiritual goals, where are you now?

A vitally important point of the compass – and a vitally important factor in your future achievement is where you are now. From this point you travel into greatness!

What is the only quality all successful people have in common? Intelligence? No. There are a lot of successful people with only average intelligence. Nor is it the individual’s talent or ability. Many a ne’er-do-well has intelligence, talent, and ability in much greater proportions than the highly successful person.

PERSISTENCE is the common denominator. The willingness to spend time in accomplishing, the willingness to withstand obstacles, criticism, discomfort, and the ability to overcome seemingly impossible odds, spell persistence – and persistence spells intelligent success.

Faced with adversity, we subsconsciously say to ourselves, “Flee it!” “Fight it!” “Forget it!” “Face it!” The first three reactions end in failure.

The fourth opens the door to success. The first step to handling any situation is to face the facts. The tendency to avoid the issue or to run away from it or even to flight it is an enemy of your full potential. Don’t confuse humility with timidity or discretion with a negative attitude.

Look your difficulty in the face. See it for what it is. Never be satisfied to excuse it, defend it, explain it away, or rationalize it. Meet it head-on . . . face it . . . seize it . . . and the sweetness of success will be yours.