Earl was an elephant. He loved the fruit from the trees! He would spend much of his time looking for and reaching up to get the best fruit he could see. But there were fruits that were too high for Earl to reach.
Earl would watch the monkeys screaming and playing in the trees. They would eat the fruits that were high up in the trees. Earl wished his trunk was long enough to reach those fruits, but it was only long enough to reach the low hanging fruits. Earl would eat those low hanging fruits, but in his heart he longed for the fruits up high in the tree. They looked bigger and more colorful, and he could imagine the sweet, sweet taste that was just out of his reach.
One day, Earl called to the monkeys, “Hey! I want some fruit! Can you drop one to me please?”
Mindi the monkey replied, “Why? You have fruit right in front of you. Just reach up and grab it!”
Earl shouted back, “But I want the high fruit! I’m sure it tastes much better than the fruit I can reach!”
Mindi shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay Earl. Here you go!” And she dropped a fruit to Earl.
Finally! Earl had what he had longed for! He looked at the fruit and thought of all the times he ate that low hanging fruit while dreaming of the high fruit! Now he was going to taste the good fruit and finally see what he had been missing out on.
He took a bite and the fruit hit his tongue. He closed his eyes and tasted the sweetness. He chewed and ate the fruit.
Earl was confused. “This fruit isn’t any sweeter than the fruit I’ve been eating! I was so sure it would be better, but it’s exactly the same!”
Mindi climbed down the tree and looked at Earl. “I was wondering why you so wanted the high fruit!”
Earl asked, “Why do you eat the high fruit Mindi? Why do you climb so high to get them when there are fruits that are low?”
Mindi replied, “The high fruit is easiest for me to get, because I live high in the trees. Why would I travel so far to get the low hanging fruit when I can simply reach out and eat the fruit that is within my reach?”
Earl thought about all the time he had wasted dreaming of the high fruit and not enjoying the fruit he had right within the reach of his trunk!
“Never again will I long for something without enjoying what I have. I will dream, but not at the cost of the moment. I’m going to enjoy the fruit I can eat – the low hanging fruit – and truly savor what I have within the reach of my own trunk!”
In your life, what are you dreaming of? Dreams are great, but if you are only able to see the dream, what are you doing with the moment – with right now? Don’t spend your life running so fast toward your goal that you pass by the life you have now. Sometimes the greatest joy can come from the low hanging fruit, so look for that first – and enjoy it – and keep reaching high for the stars as you do! If you are a steward with what you have, more will surely follow!
‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.’ (Matthew 25:21 NIV)
I’ll never forget it. I was playing a gig and half way through the 3rd set I noticed my zipper was down. How embarrassing! I was rocking out, acting like the coolest thing in the world, and everyone was staring at my underwear, not my bass guitar! I was so embarrassed!
My friend later told me, “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to embarrass you.” WHAT?!?! As if NOT telling me saved me any embarrassment! It caused more! I told him, “Next time, TELL ME!”
The fact is you know what you know, you know what you don’t know, but you also don’t know what you don’t know. Let me explain. I know 2+2=4. I also know that I can’t speak German. But there are a number of things that I don’t know even exist. In many areas I’ve been walking around in ignorance, making decisions and not even knowing they were destroying my dreams; just like playing that gig with my fly down. If someone knew something you didn’t know that might help you, wouldn’t you want to know it? Are you sure?
Well, I can tell you that there are things about you that, if someone told you, might hurt you. I remember the day it all came to a head. I was sitting on the couch when Mary Claire walked in. She said, “Daddy, I want to be just like you.” I was flying high then! Who wouldn’t want to be just like me, right? She continued, “I want a belly just like yours.” That line echoed throughout my brain. You see, I was 460 pounds, and my stomach was 69 ½ inches around. That is C-R-A-Z-Y! I got angry. Not with her – with me. I stared at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like the man staring back at me.
I was a mean man; angry at myself and in turn angry at everyone else! I treated my family like dirt, and most of all I was probably the poorest role model my kids could have! Oh God! Mary wanted a belly – JUST LIKE MINE! NOOOOOOOOO!
Well, that did hurt, but I can say that becoming aware of how my anger and obesity was affecting my family, a change became possible – I no longer didn’t know what I didn’t know. Of course I knew I was obese, but I was oblivious to what my obesity was causing in my life and in the lives of those around me. After Mary told me, I could deny it or I could weigh it. I weighed it heavily – and I cried.
She was right. She did want to be just like me – and I didn’t ever want that to happen.
What are you walking around with that you don’t know about? How do you come across to people? Are you rude without even realizing it? Are you running scared and hiding out from your responsibilities? Or is your fly down? One way to find out is to ask. Simply find someone and ask for a little feedback. Ask them how they see you. Ask them what you can work on. Find out what you possibly don’t know.
I sent a mass-text to many of my friends a few years ago. I asked, “Name my greatest strength and my biggest weakness.” What I found was that many of my friends gave me the same feedback – both in strengths and weaknesses. The feedback “impatient” came back the most. Boy is that true! I am so impatient with my family, friends, in almost anything I do! I cut people off mid-sentence. I get angry and aggravated very quickly. I sure need patience. That feedback has helped me in my life. Did it hurt to hear it? Sure! Was it helpful to hear it? YOU BET!
Don’t fret when people give you feedback. Tell them you’ll weigh it carefully, and that you acknowledge their experience of you. Then weigh it and deal with it. Hearing those areas in which we are weak can help us strengthen them and get exactly what we want! And we might not play a gig with our fly open.
In review, we’ve talked about your WHY, your WHO, and your WHAT. I want you to grasp tightly to the reasons WHY you are doing something. If you have a WHY, then the work isn’t just work – it has purpose! Also, you can’t be all you can be alone – you need some WHO’s in your life to teach you, support you, and help you! Also, you need to know exactly WHAT it is you want or you will just be chasing the wind!
Today, let’s talk about your WHEN. I often hear people say, “When we have enough money, we’ll get married.” I’ve got news for them – that hardly ever happens! Why would you let your net-worth affect the date you begin spending your life with the one you love? I also hear, “I’ll start my diet on Monday – after I eat this cheeseburger.” Tomorrow never comes and you’re just wasting time. If you could get exactly what you want, why would you put it off? You’re robbing yourself of time with what you want!
Your WHEN happens when you decide to take the first step. It’s not when you stand on the scale and hit your goal weight! It’s when you make a decision to change. It’s not when you pay the last debt payment! It’s when you cut up the cards and start paying more than the minimum payment. The length of the journey is not what is important – it’s the journey itself. The size of the step isn’t important, either. It’s simply taking one – one single step that begins a new direction, bringing you closer to where you eventually want to be! This can be with any goal; diet, business, relationship, or spiritual goal!
Too many times we are waiting for the right time, or the right place, or the right economy, or something else to begin our journey. Does what you want depend on external situations? If so, change your mind about that! Here are a few facts for you to consider:
- Proctor & Gamble was started during the Panic of 1837, the greatest economic decline since the birth of the country! Proctor & Gamble’s revenue in 2013 was $84.17 Billion.
- The three founding companies that merged in 1911 to form IBM, all were founded during the Long Depression of 1873-1896.
- General Electric was born during the Panic of 1873 which shut down the NYSE for days! The Panic didn’t stop the company who in 2013 had revenues of $146 Billion Dollars. Not bad, huh?
- General Motors was founded after the Panic of 1907, which caused major runs in which many financial institutions did not survive.
- FedEx was founded during the Oil Crisis of 1973. Really? A delivery company founded during a fuel crisis? Whoulda thunk?
My point is to stop making excuses and start taking steps. Your WHEN is today! You don’t have to know the whole plan! You don’t even have to know half the plan. You just need to know the dream or goal in your heart, and then find the next right thing to do. Your Journey begins with a single step.
Do you find it hard to trust people? Or maybe you even find it hard to trust yourself. Trust comes with practice – and it is a choice. Many people I’ve asked have told me, “I don’t trust someone unless I know them. It must be earned.” Is that the truth?
We trust every day of our lives. We trust people we don’t even know to stay on the opposite side of that double-yellow line separating traffic. We trust the food handlers in a restaurant when we order a meal. We trust a chair when we sit in it. And we trust a pilot to fly us in an airplane.
The following is a definition of trust from dictionary.com:
TRUST | confident expectation of something; hope.
Let’s explore this further.
A benefit of trust is relationship.
Without it, we miss out on one of the most fruitful things in life – relationships. Friendship, dating, marriage, and family all begin with trust. And if you choose not to trust someone, you can never experience the pleasure of these relationships to a deeper extent.
Another benefit of trust is freedom.
Do you try to do everything yourself? You may be missing out on opportunities by spending all of your time doing what you could trust others to do for you. Hey – this is biblical! In Exodus 18:13-27, Moses was trying to hear all of the disputes of the people himself. His father-in-law told him, “This is not good! You’re going to wear yourself out, and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle by yourself.” He told Moses to find elders who he could trust to settle the minor disputes among the people, leaving only the larger disputes for him. Do you need some freedom by appointing some of your too-heavy workload to some others? Yea, I know – it takes trust!
Possibly the biggest benefit of trust is realizing your dreams.
The Bible says “Hope deferred makes a heart grow weak.” When you lose your hope, your dreams become too far away to achieve. The first person you must trust when it comes to your dreams is you. You stand on a threshold. Behind you is the past, the threshold is where you are, and beyond the threshold is where you want to be – your hopes and dreams. The first step to achieving them is taking a leap of faith – on you.
One thing we teach at The Journey Training is that your hopes, goals, and dreams are possible. The first thing it takes is trust – trusting in others, and trusting in yourself. Can you get hurt? Of course you can. But you can also travel farther with trust than by going it alone. Can you fail? Yes. But with each failure you gain the wisdom and confidence to fail better next time – and you will eventually succeed.
Begin to trust and relationship, goals, and dreams will be a little closer to you. And who knows? You just might get exactly what you want!
One of the things I hear often is that personal awareness seminars are only for people who have problems, addictions or for those who are “broken.” This is the same mindset I had before I attended my first seminar.
To be honest, the main reason I went to one is because of my friends and my wife. They were thinking about going and I wanted to go to be with them. They didn’t try to convince me to go, I just did not want to be left out. I had never actually considered attending a personal awareness seminar, especially since I have heard so many jokes about them. I don’t believe anyone, including myself, would have looked at my life and thought I was broken or had problems that needed fixing.
I have always been interested in seeing what the “next level” in business and in life looks like, and I often looked for things that would help me reach it. For many years I have been thought of by many (including myself) to already be at the top of my game. I thought that things were already great.
A few years ago I had two Chick-fil-A locations and I was challenged by a friend to win the “Symbol Of Success” award from Chick-fil-A. The “Symbol Of Success” is a “high achievers” program that is based on sales increases. When you have multiple locations, the challenge becomes even steeper because you have to hit a particular sales increase for both locations, not just for one. Someone from the CFA home office told me that I would not be able to pull this off. I took her up on the challenge and told her that if I made it, she would have to wear a Catwoman costume to our annual company seminar. She agreed, but only if I wore a Superman outfit as well. Little did she know that I already owned a Superman costume, so I was halfway there…
My wife and I had just moved into a house that we had been dreaming of for years. We bought the lot three years prior that with the intention of eventually building. We finally got to where we could do that, and in June of that year we moved into our dream home. My marriage was solid and I was very involved in my church. Everything seemed to be going quite well. I could honestly say I was at one of the highest points in my life!
I attended the first personal awareness seminar in 2008 and during that time I really had a great opportunity to look at myself in the mirror. I realized how wrong I was about what personal development courses were. We get so busy living our lives that we don’t take the time to stop and evaluate where we are. We don’t take time to adjust our course so we can reach our dreams. We just get too busy. We don’t realize that greatness requires continued growth. One of my mentors, Jim Stovall, says “We take more time planning our three-day vacation then we do planning on how to achieve our dreams.”
This course helped me re-analyze my life, realize what I needed to do to focus on my potential and continue to grow.
I can honestly say that this course helped me clarify what my dreams were. Many things in my life are now greater than I ever thought possible. If I hadn’t gone through that course, none of the following growth would have occurred:
- I won the Symbol of Success program (even with the sales decreasing snowstorm in December, shutting down the entire city of Tulsa for days). The reward for winning was that I got my choice of any Ford vehicle!
- I attended the highly coveted Champion Club Award Dinner which honors those with high sales and profits.
- I wrote my first book, “Dysfunctional Inspiration,” so I could share my story. At the time of this writing, there have been over 3000 copies printed and it has impacted many lives.
- I would not have the confidence to start speaking in public forums and inspiring literally thousands of people a year.
So for those who feel that continuing education is pointless because you’re already good… Let me ask you: Why aren’t you great?
What are you doing RIGHT NOW that is causing you to continue to grow toward your dreams? Let me encourage you that greatness requires continual growth.
Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
