Lessons from Y2K - Time Flies!

The first decade of the millennium has come to pass. It seems like yesterday that we were all obsessed with being annihilated as a result of the Year 2000 computer malfunctions (Y2K). It seems that things we worry about are never as horrific as we make them out to be in our minds. Everything is temporary and a teaching tool. All things pass. Everything is changing and in the big picture; that’s a good thing. If not we’d all rust – or worse.

While most people are preparing for Christmas celebrations, Festivus or Chinese food and a movie, whatever your tradition may be, I wanted to get right into 2010 and resolutions. What’s your New Year’s resolution going to be? Will you resolve to quit smoking, eat less and exercise more? Other popular but less talked about resolutions are spending more time with family, learning something new, helping others and simply enjoying life more. The great news is that these less recognized goals can be achieved through owning a business. Time moves so quickly and we're on this planet for such a short time. Why continue to do something for a living that you hate? What are you waiting for? “I have no business experience,” you say? Maybe a franchise is just the thing for you – a business with training wheels!

Moreover, starting a new franchise will not only help you get to your dreams but you’ll create about ten new jobs in your community. In this job market, you’ll be hailed as a king for that!

As with any resolution, there is a lot of commitment and excitement on the first day of the year. In a business search the determination is never stronger than when that first inquiry is made – at that time, all possibilities are real. Images flash before your eyes of no boss to report to, no long commute and playing golf mid-week. Unfortunately, business searches, like most New Year’s resolutions, are usually short lived. According to Joe Mathews, author of Street Smart Franchising, out of 100 people who think about owning a franchise business, only 1 will actually become a franchisee.

One night, mid-slumber, the prospective entrepreneur sits straight up in bed and thinks, “am I crazy?!” All of the “what if’s” creep in: Can I make money? Will I have customers? Suddenly, she recalls a vague story about her baby-sitter’s uncle’s barber who cuts the hair of a guy who lost his shirt in a business – and it’s back to working for that idiot boss, waking to traffic reports on the alarm clock and waiting two hours on a Sunday morning to tee off. Wow, that was a short lived fantasy, it’s only February. What happened?

Fear of the unknown is what happened. Thankfully, there are ways to overcome the inevitable mountain of fear. Getting past the fear is the quintessential right of passage for a new entrepreneur. It’s a test all business owners face and it truly separates the wanna-bes from the people who know in their soul that there can be more to life than working a J-O-B.

How do you get past the fear? Acceptance. You need to acknowledge that this decision to change your life will have more anxiety than anything else that you would freely volunteer to do. Without facing the fear you will inevitably stay stuck where you are. There is no one forcing anyone to buy a franchise – unlike some to other high anxiety situations like making a speech at your brother’s wedding. There’s a sense of obligation to the sibling, so you make the speech and pray that it will be over soon. (The speech that is, not the marriage).

If you’re considering buying a franchise, address all of the fears up front and create a strategy for dealing with them before they arise. We all know that 98% of those things we fear never come to pass. Focus on the positives of business ownership and what it can do for you and your family. Understand that at the end of your due diligence, the real and final decision is yours and yours alone. If you get this far you will find that the real choice is between unhappiness (the boss, the commute, lousy pay) verses uncertainty (the possibilities of what could be if the chance is taken). I hope you choose uncertainty because life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

My wish for you in 2010 is to reach out, without fear, for newer, richer experiences.

Tom Scarda
Reach for the Top!

Schrödinger's Cat

If you take a moment to think about the world beyond your everyday life you’d discover that there is an unseen energy that is always in control of the universe. The human ego makes us think that we have power over what we do. To an extent we do and we don’t. Is that confusing? Well it gets worse.

Did you ever stop to think about how certain bodily functions happen while we’re asleep? How are we able to keep our blood pumping, digest food, grow hair and nails and even dream? Where does that energy come from? How do we keep our bodies somewhere between 97 and 104 degrees for our entire life span?

While we’re thinking about “stuff,” how does the ocean move? What makes the sun go around? Why do animals’ coats get thicker in the winter and thinner in the summer without effort? Why do squirrels, in the middle of a vast metropolis like New York City still gather nuts and food for the winter when they’re not in their natural habitat?

We all know the scientific explanation behind these phenomena but how did it all start? Is it possible that the same energy that controls the waves also controls human’s breathing? Did you know that the time it takes to take a full breath of air is the identical time it takes for a wave to roll on to a beach? Coincidence?

I submit that we are part of a grand energy system that we don’t consider, take for granted, nor use for our greater good. I believe all things are possible if we learn to tap into our God-given ability to create our existence. If we let go of the concept good and bad, or wrong and right decisions and just live for the experience, we would be amazed at the results, and the grand events and the miracles we’d relish.

I suggest that every possibility in the world, and even more than our feeble imaginations can conjure, are available to us at this very moment. Everything exists at all times. The Physicist Niels Bohr stated that observation is necessary to determine the state of an object. Before the observation is made, all things exist in all possible variations. This is called the Copenhagen Theory in quantum physics.

What exists in your reality is present because you choose it with your decision. I can list pages of examples here but I’ll keep it to a few items.

If you want a new car, all possible autos are available at this moment. For various reasons such as price, gas consumption and size of vehicle, you narrow down your choices to a few models. Once you “decide” which model you will buy, you suddenly start to notice the same exact vehicle in parking lots, on the street and even two on your own block. Now that you’ve put your attention on or “observed” a specific vehicle, that particular vehicle comes into your reality-vision.

Too illustrate this theory I want to talk about a quantum physics example called Schrödinger's cat. In 1935, the scientist Edwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment. Schrödinger suggested that if you put a live feline in a box with poison and left it alone for an hour that cat is both alive and dead for that hour. Both realities exist. Until one makes the decision to look into the box, all out comes are possible.

Can this translate into every decision you make? Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are correct.” Until you open the box of your life nothing happens. When you look to see what’s inside – or out there for you – you’ll never know.

The Power of Persistence by Justin Sachs

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past seven years that I’ve been in the personal development industry it’s that there is one characteristic that, above all, creates success among the most extraordinary people. That one characteristic is persistence.

If we look throughout the world in every industry, in every culture, there’s one consistent trend among every single successful individual, and that trend is the ability to persevere beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s the ability to stand up beyond everyone else and take a step forward when everyone else sits down.

Before we get started I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge you, because it’s not just anyone who would read an article called The Power of Persistence. It isn’t every day that people decide to do what they need to in order to be successful.

Only the most extraordinary individuals, the top minute fragment of a percent, who actually step up and take action towards creating success in their lives. Simply by picking up this book, you’ve chosen to step up and I acknowledge you for taking on that feat.

The Power of Persistence is available at www.PowerofPersistenceBook.com with over $3,000 bonuses when you purchase.

If we look throughout history at some of the greatest leaders-- Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Colonel Sanders, Mark Victor Hansen, Steve Jobs -- the most extraordinarily successful people are those who have persisted beyond the norm.
Everywhere we look we see signs of persistence in those that are creating the most challenging and rewarding results. It is not always natural; it’s a learned trait. What this means though, is that success is simply a choice.

There was once a politician who failed at business at the age of 21. He was defeated in a legislative race at age 22, he failed again at business at age 24, overcame the death of his lover at age 26, had a nervous breakdown at age 27, lost a congressional race at 34 and 36, lost a senatorial race at 45, failed to become vice president at 47, lost a senatorial race at 49 and then finally was elected to President of the United States of America at age 52.

Now imagine, if he had considered any of these past experiences as failures and had allowed that to stop him from moving forward, he would never have become one of the most extraordinary Presidents of the United States, Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

There’s a famous story about Thomas Edison: he tried 9,999 times to perfect the light bulb and he couldn’t do it. Someone said, “Are you going to have 10,000 failures?” And he responded, “I didn’t fail, I just discovered another way not to invent the electric light bulb.”

He got to choose how he perceived his previous experiences and whether or not he perceived them as failures.

Mark Victor Hansen, a close friend of mine and an extraordinary mentor and businessman. He is the coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul Series that has now sold over 144 million copies in over 20 languages worldwide.

But did you know that over 110 publishers, in their pursuit to be published, turned down Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield? They went to New York, and it wasn’t until a publisher’s wife got a hold of the manuscript and all night long she was waking her husband saying “Look at this, look at this” Finally the publisher agreed to publish it.

Now here’s a story about another individual. His name was Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was a military retiree and had nothing to his name, except his mother’s chicken recipe. So what did he do? He took his old sports wagon out and began driving to restaurant after restaurant after restaurant.

His intention was to sell the chicken recipe, but he was turned down time and time again he was turned down; 1,007 times before he received his first yes and that one yes is what made possible Kentucky Fried Chicken possible.

The last individual I want to tell you about is Steve Jobs, the President and founder of Apple Computer. Members of his own board of directors kicked him out of his own company. He could have allowed this to stop him, but instead he stood up. It was only because he persisted that he was voted back in as Chairman of Apple. He created the iPod, the iPhone and a new line of Mac Computers. Had he not, we probably would not have ever experienced an iPod or an iPhone.

As you can see the stories go on and on of the most extraordinary individuals creating powerful results, as a direct reflection of their persistence. Because time and time again, individuals are stopped along their journey. Just because they’re stopped, it doesn’t mean that they are failures or that their project will never work. It simply means that they’re one step closer to achieving the result that they desire

Justin Sachs is the best-selling author of The Power of Persistence, and leading success coach for entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and business owners. His latest book can be found at www.PowerofPersistenceBook.com with over $3,000 in bonuses from leading experts like Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Loral Langmeierfor anyone who purchases a copy.

Parents, Teachers, Preachers

The Buddha said: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

I Sold My Chopper Today

The chipper young guy who showed up to buy my Harley-Davidson looked like he'd just walked off the set of a bad biker movie. His black tee-shirt blurted, "I Own a Harley - Not Just a Tee Shirt." Did he stop to buy that shirt on the way here? The leather jacket flung over his shoulder looked new. I'd bet he didn't know that leather is your second skin if you suffer the misfortune of making love to the pavement - it's not a fashion statement, even the Fonz knew that. Anyway, I could tell he wasn't a genuine biker: he had no tattoos.

He slipped on his jacket and mounted my bike. I felt a sense of pride when the engine came to life with just one kick. We said our good-byes. "Take care of her, man....," I said. He looked up, gave me a sheepish grin and plopped off the curb onto the street. Car alarms screeched in distress as the twisted metal machine roared down the street. I watched the wheels glide along the blacktop. He turned the corner and was gone. The sound of the engine pounding the air was all that lingered. Like a passing thunderstorm, it faded with distance.

As I stood watching my bike ride away, a rerun of my life played on the screen of my mind. That guy was me a couple of dozen years ago. Does the stubbled-faced kid know what he's getting into? He has an image to bear up to every time he rides that hog. To be taken seriously, he has to give up haircuts and laundry detergent. When he pulls up on that Harley, preceded by the loud thump, thump, thump of the V-twin engine, people anticipate an attitude. The new biker will have to replace that boyish smile with a sneer; he owes it to his public. This is not just for the fun of it, pal; it’s a lifestyle, if you're for real.

In selling my bike, I divorced my soul mate. I rode that chopper for what seems like a lifetime. I was in the saddle through every season; only ice on the ground could get me into a four-wheeled cage. It holds a place in my heart like my first girlfriend. There are pictures of me sitting on it when I got my 15 minutes of fame on the local news. It was a part of me. When I was downhearted, I’d take her for a ride to the Verrazano Bridge. The wind in my face blew away my troubles.

Now, sitting on the curb in front of my modest Long Island split-level, I reflected on why I had become an outlaw biker back then. Part of it was the attention. Riding a Harley chopper with a gang's logo stitched into my leather vest made me a celebrity, like the original Jesse James (not the TV personality). The daunting sight of a gang member unsettled some, but awed others. That's what drew me in. But more than that, the motorcycle was the perfect vehicle for my own identity crisis.

In Brooklyn's Saint Thomas Aquinas grammar school, dressed exactly like 300 other good Catholic boys, I wore gray slate trousers and a blue-and-gray plaid blazer every day. I cried out for recognition. What better way to get noticed then to join an outlaw motorcycle club? So, at 19, I took the plunge. Ironically, I learned that bikers had a uniform too: Steel-toed boots, wallet with a silver chain dangling, leather jacket with innumerable zippers, vest embellished with patches, dark sunglasses, jeans and a tee shirt with a red and orange Harley emblem or a "provocative proverb" such as "Real Men Wear Black." Over time, I learned that the uniform wasn't very practical during the summer months. But it was the uniform, nevertheless; I had to wear it.

Sporting the gear, I was part of motorcycle Americana. I rode along happily for a few years until one day I discovered that the very reason I became a biker no longer existed. I felt like I’d been broadsided by a bus. While shopping for my girl's birthday present at Macy’s, groping silky lingerie, I glanced over to the Men’s department and eyeballed an authentic custom Harley-Davidson. Mannequins displaying designer motorcycle jackets and bandannas straddled the bike right in the main aisle. I realized with great dismay: I was IN FASHION! The media, and then Wall Street, had ripped the romance right out of my underground culture.

First, Hollywood gave America tough-guy biker Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Fifty years later, Terminator 2 featured Arnold Schwarzenegger blasting across the screen on a Harley. Today we have a comedy movie based on motorcycles and midlife crisis. The motorcycle’s biography is often the topic of TV documentaries. Even Ted Turner’s people capitalized on the legend with their show “Orange County Choppers.” The last American-made motorcycle has become a status symbol, just like the Cadillac. However, I don't know anyone who has the Cadillac emblem tattooed into his skin.

1986 saw Wall Street take the Harley-Davidson Motor Company public. The stock has split more times than my 20-year old blue jeans. Now, H-D doesn't care about their original customers, outlaw bikers. During the Sixties and Seventies, Harley loyalists bought Harley-trademarked motorcycle gear at triple its value, just to keep the company alive.

Now, with amenities such as rubber-mounted engines and belt drives to ease vibration, the American-made motorcycle is not a “hog” anymore. Wannabe bikers, with their large discretionary incomes, scoop-up new Harleys for amounts that could be a down payment for a house - an expensive price to buy back the machismo they traded in for their college degrees.

My dentist now owns one, his attorney brother, the sixth-grade teacher at my daughter's school, and the white-haired retired guy who lives down the block with the 2008 Mercedes-Benz (I bet he bought his bike with his American Express card). Pseudo-bikers will do anything to be part of the Harley culture, except commit to it as a way of life. They stop shaving on Thursdays so they'll have a thick five o'clock shadow to flaunt on the weekend. Being a biker is just a fantasy. The credit-card bikers are never willing to get their hands dirty, literally.

But a real biker can always be identified. He knows his bike the way parents know their children. When the oil-marinated machine backfires, he knows why. If it leaks, he plugs it. If the engine smokes, he cures it. The burly, long haired rider does all his own repairs and maintenance. His machine is a member of the family. It has a special space to take its siestas, the other members of the clan know its history, and the two-wheeled relative often appears in family photo albums.

So, as my Harley moves on, I can only hope she will be happy. Although my skin crawls with tattoo ink and my heart longs for the open road, I can no longer ride. Having known the real thing, I can't align myself with the store-bought image. Moreover, my soul mate has lost its soul. I guess all things change, for better or worse, even me.

Now, I have two kids, Schwarzenegger has three, Brando is dead and the Hells Angels have a My Space page. However, I also now have $7,000 in my hand, which will pay for removing the motorcycle-oil stains from my driveway.

Why Do We Get Sick?

First, understand that all illness is created in the mind - even sickness that is said to be contagious or brought on from old age. Thoughts are very subtle, yet extremely powerful.

A person who thinks to herself, "My life is stressed," "I'm sick and tired of my life," I'm a loser," "God is going to punish me," will get sick – eventually.
Germs of the mind are as powerful, if not more powerful than the germs we find in a toilet.

Notice that many times when you have a cold you have something big coming up. Could even be something relaxing such as a vacation but if you stress about it, it wears you down and you get sick. Some people think they catch a cold from their friend who is sick. The mere thought, oh great, now I’m going to get this guys cold is the impetus to you coming down with something. Next time someone in your presence sneezes, think to yourself, I’m grateful that I have an amazingly strong immune system.

In Neal Walsch’s book, Conversations With God, he submits that many people create their illness because they love them. They use being sick to feel sorry for themselves and to get attention. Even the conventional western doctors are now seeing how people make themselves sick.

Most people do so unconsciously. When they get sick they don't know what hit them. They think they caught something, they never think they did something to themselves. Most people go through life totally unaware that they can create or destroy anything with their mind.

Do you know anyone who goes though life eating poorly and then wonders why they have coronary disease? How about people who are angry, harbor ill feelings toward another or toward themselves via guilt and end up having a stroke? The not so obvious truth is that most people worry themselves to death.

Walsch continues; worry is the worst form of mental activity, aside from hate. Worry is pointless. It is a waste of mental energy. It creates bio-chemical reactions to the body that create everything from indigestion to heart attacks plus a myriad of things in between.

One's health will improve immediately when worrying ends. Worry is the activity that does not understand its connection with God.

Hatred is the most severely damaging mental activity. It poisons the body, and its effects are virtually irreversible. Do you hate someone for what you perceive they did to you? Hate has no affect on the receiver, only the giver. Let it go immediately before it kills you!

Fear is the opposite of everything you are, and has an effect of opposition to your mental and physical health. Fear is worry magnified.

Worry, hate and fear all attack the body at a cellular level. It is impossible to have a healthy body under these conditions.

ALL illness is created first in the mind.

Why We Choose Fear

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great. –Mark Twain

What is the last thing your mother said to you when you were leaving the house? What's the last thing you say to your children? My mother always said and still says: “Be Careful!”

We are brought up and taught to take care because you don’t know what fate has stored around the corner. Because of this we live with a sense of fear looming in the background. We take that fear to our everyday lives and decisions. There’s always the “what if” quotient we have to deal with.

Wow, just think, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Life would be very different, would it not? In high school, would you have asked the prettiest girl on a date? Would you apply for the position that had a responsibility of huge budgets and vast amounts of people? Would you have chosen a career that was more fulfilling and not just safe? Do you have a song still in you waiting to be sung?

Our teachers, preachers and parents have all told us to take the safe route. They love us and don’t want to see us get hurt or lose - although there is nothing to lose. If you think about it, it’s really them. They don’t want to have to deal with you losing or their perception of lose. Some just don’t want you to succeed either. Your success will remind them of their failure or lack of spirit. Some people just want to have control so they tell you that they know people who have tried things and failed or suffered. They breed the fear. Others don’t like change, even if its change in your life. They need to have you categorized and compartmentalized for their convenience.

We rarely are told of the people who took a chance, who took a left turn and succeeded. I love Robert Frost’s quote from the Road Less Traveled. I have taken the one less traveled, and that has made all the difference. I have lived by those words since high school.

Have you ever faced fear and made a decision that surprised even you?

Love or Fear?

The way you approach life – from love or fear - will produce certain results on the physical plane or in reality.

Love being “the way” of masters, is equal to higher consciousness which is not connected to the physical plane at all. Love is thinking out of your head, in line with God. Reality is the polar opposite to God or living like God or living like a master. When you are based in reality (facts) there can only be fear. Reality=Fear.

Once you step outside of reality you step out of fear and into peace, joy and happiness: love. However, if you live with one foot in love (truth) and one in fear (reality) you are separated, living a dual-personality. This is where the struggle of life is – in giving credence to reality.

The ego is based in reality which is always feeling lack. The ego is always in pursuit of the next thing - Always looking for that next piece of gratification, the next moment. It’s not being present but being addicted to the next hit. The rub is that reality and your ego do not exist in love, in God’s domain. Living in your head, from your ego is like living on an iceberg that is melting more and more every day. If you can manage to get off the ice berg and onto solid ground you no longer have to worry about slipping or there being enough room to live.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
...Robert Frost