Champions aren’t made in a day, but they are made DAILY!  As the Fall season is upon us think about what kind of finish you’d like to have to 2011.  With just under 3 months remaining of the year, how close are you to accomplishing your 2011 goals?  How consistent have you been in DAILY disciplines and productive activities?  Whatever you may or may not have done up to this point, you can do more!

Sprint through the 2011 Finish Line!  Finish the year strong!  If you’ve been slacking, falling off the proverbial Success horse and missing your marks, NOW is the time to dust yourself off, get back on, and in the game and get after your goals with unbridled passion!!  When December 31st arrives, you want to be in a place of peace and satisfaction if not downright exhaustion because you gave it all you had in these last 3 months!!  If you’re on target or even ahead of your goals, now is not the time to rest on your Success.  Now is the time to dig deep and find out how much more you can do!  There may be some others that you can encourage or you may just want to double or triple your goals!  Whatever you decide, just dig to do a bit more.

It certainly is not always easy to self evaluate and course correct with the appropriate actions, but it is always worth it!

You have to have discipline in order to create the life of your dreams and discipline is where most of us fall short.  Not because we don’t have it, but because we fail to exercise it.  There have been times in my life where I had a goal, and I put in the work to achieve it, but I fell short along the way because there were MOMENTS when I had a lapse of discipline.  You can do the disciplined thing 99 days in a row, and on the 100^th day have a lapse in discipline and the previous 99 days can be wiped out.  The power of daily discipline can move mountains.  You can literally create the life of your dreams through daily discipline!  The power of a lapse in discipline can make those same mountains crumble.  There are numerous examples all around you of what life can look like when you don’t exercise daily discipline.  It’s very subtle and easy to do.  It’s also easy not to do which is why you must have great reverence for its power.  It’s true that there are things that will happen in life that are beyond our control, but we will be able to handle those things much better if we cultivate the habit of daily discipline.

You may not be where you want to be right now.  You may not have the body of your dreams or the lifestyle you desire, but if you look back at the path you’ve walked up to this point, I guarantee you will find lapses in discipline that lead to your falling short.  And it was a tiny almost imperceptible act.  A flick of the power button on the television instead of opening a book, eating the donut instead of the apple, spending on the fancy item at the mall instead of investing in the Roth IRA, all very subtle lapses, but they ALWAYS add up and they ALWAYS bear a consequence. The beauty of it is that you can course correct.  You can start anew today to exercise daily discipline in those tiny, imperceptible moments, and with each passing day grow stronger in it.  And understand that because of your renewed commitment to discipline, you will now have even greater tests and temptation toward a lapse of discipline and it will be in those MOMENTS (to be disciplined or not to be disciplined) that your future and your destiny will be shaped.

Make the decision today to Master Self Discipline.  You do that and your life will change.  When you Master Self Discipline you can truly create the life of your dreams!!

On the front page of USA Today was an article about 120,000 US Postal workers soon to be laid off.  That was on Friday.  Today, I went to the post office to mail some company material and I asked the worker behind the counter how she felt about the possibility of losing her job.  She said “well it’s going to spread out, so hopefully it will miss me.”  I thought to myself WOW!  Is that the best response for yourself that you can muster?  Does the work that you put into this institution for the past 12 to 15 years warrant only a hope and a wish that you can continue to earn income to provide for you and your family?  Do you have NO OTHER OPTIONS?

Our country just received a down grade in our credit rating.  Millions and millions of Americans are swimming and drowning in debt and it’s become the norm.  Many of us have been sold a false bill of goods that it’s okay to buy now and pay later and we bought into it hook, line and sinker!  Well the GOOD NEWS is, is that we can do something about it.  We are in an era of tremendous adversity which translates into greater opportunity if we have the right mindset and ask the right questions.

In terms of mindset, you must be mentally tough and emotionally fit.  Weakness and timidity will destroy any chance of Success.  Read empowering material, listen to inspiring messages and watch uplifting videos.  Talk to other Success minded people.  Network with and model the behavior of those who have achieved the kind of Success you aspire to.  Be mindful of your language and your thoughts and focus on solutions and strategies instead of problems and excuses.

Ask empowering questions instead of disempowering questions!  “How can I be better?”  Instead of “why does this always happen to me?”  “What patterns of Success can I emulate?”  Instead of “why does everything I do fail?”  “Am I really putting forth my absolute best effort?”  Instead of “why is what I’m trying not working?”  “Am I taking 100% responsibility for my life?”  Instead of “why does God have it in for me?”  Quality questions can lead to quality choices which can lead to quality results!

120,000 US Postal workers are going to have to do something different.  Some will respond from a place of empowerment and others will react from a place of disempowerment.  Whether you’re a part of that group or not, I encourage you to always ask empowering questions, that can lead to empowering choices, that will lead to empowering results!

It’s that time of year!  If you’ve ever played football or are a football enthusiast, you know that this is the time of year when football teams all across the country ramp up the intensity of their preparation and increase the quality and quantity of their practice.  Teams go from one a day practices to two a day and sometimes three a day sessions.  There are extra team meetings and more time spent watching film.  New plays are added to the already bulging playbook and players spend additional time meeting amongst themselves to review specific strategies and further develop their timing and execution.  Coaches and support staff are all working virtually around the clock in order to prepare for the launch of the fall season.

August is a critical month if your work involves football.  How you go through the month of August sets the tone for the remainder of that year.  It can determine whether you have an extraordinary fall season or a mediocre one and most teams find that what they reap in this one month can often sow great harvests in October, November and into the season of champions, late fall and early winter.

Whether you’re a football enthusiast or not, YOUR fall season approaches.  What kind of season do you aspire to have?  What groundwork are you laying out right now?  What supernatural effort are you putting forth right now?  What seeds are you sowing right now?  In order to insure that you reap a bountiful harvest in your fall season?

It’s August 1st.  I say it’s time to turn it up!  In order to insure that you reap a bountiful harvest in your fall season, really put forth that extra effort so that you can spark your own momentum in whatever your work or mission is.  Get up earlier, arrive earlier and stay later.  Spend that extra bit of time, read those extra few pages, write just one more line, practice just 20 more minutes, make just 5 more calls, run just one more mile!  You do that little bit extra consistently this month and you can have a fall season that produces championship results!  And whether you win it all or not, it will definitely be a season that you can be proud of!

Here we are at the halfway point of 2011!  Where are you?  Do you feel good about your progress thus far?  Are you on track and on purpose with your goals?  Do you need to make a major shift or minor adjustment?  Are you further along than you thought, right on schedule, or perhaps not as advanced as you’d planned?  So often we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year without having an appropriate context for what we can achieve in 3 or 5 or 10 years.  Whatever your goals are, it’s been proven that you can get there faster with accountability and/or coaching.  So if you don’t have an accountability partner or group, find, or create one.  If you’re not working with a business coach or life coach, look into it.  It may provide the slight edge that takes you to the next level.  In the process of evaluating my first six months of 2011 I’m discovering some gaps between my goals and my actions and I’m seeing where some necessary tweaks are needed along with greater focus and accountability.

Take some time this week to really check in with yourself and your program to see if  it’s taking you where you really want to go.  Give yourself that gift of serious evaluation, constructive feedback and course correction so that the second half of 2011 can be better than the first!!

Life a Life by YOUR Design!

Ed Blunt

It’s easy to be positive when everything is going great. It’s easy to love others when they’re nice and do what you like. It’s easy to have faith when your pockets are full and everyone is on your wagon. Can you be and do that when things and people are not so great? The measure of a man/woman

Title: ‘It’s Your Time’ 15 Year Anniversary MTA TM!
Location: 130 Livingston Brooklyn NY RM 111-112
Description: keynote address!
Start Time: 6pm
Date: 6/9/11
End Time: 8pm

I was watching a documentary on Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine and it talked about how he would sometimes work for 2 or 3 days straight and he did that multiple times!  He was SO focused and passionate about putting out the perfect Playboy magazine that he would not rest until he had exhausted all possibilities and examined every detail!  No matter that we’re talking about a magazine that’s known for nude photos, that same magazine has also been recognized for exceptional cover stories and interviews.  My point is that Hugh Hefner put forth more effort than anyone else could ever expect.  He raised the bar so high on himself that it was impossible for the world to look away from his work even though it was controversial and a hot topic of morality debate.  Hugh Hefner was congruent with his intention and his message and he was willing to put everything on the line for his conviction.

What are YOU convicted about?  What are you willing to lose sleep for?  To risk your name, reputation and your life for?

Once you answer these questions, go at it with the full force of your being!  Totally tune in to your mission and tune everything else out for a period of time.  Stay up later, get up earlier, dig a little deeper within yourself and see what happens!  Perhaps you’re doing this now or have done this before.  If you’re in this zone now, great!  Do what you must to continue to live up to your greatness.  If it’s been awhile then start today!  Look in the mirror and say “I can do more because there is more in me.”

My mentor has often said “if greatness is possible, excellence is not enough.”  Be great today!

When it comes to GETTING IT DONE, stop thinking and start doing!  The mind can trip you up if you let it.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought myself out of opportunities to advance my growth and momentum.  Right now there are things I know I need to do, but I’m procrastinating, pondering and thinking it to death!  All I need to do is GET ON WITH IT!!  It’s THAT simple, but I like to complicate it.  That way I can procrastinate, meditate and conjugate ways to NOT do what needs to be done.  My revelation today is to simply GET IT DONE!  Take massive, focused, energized, positive, enthusiastic action NOW!!!

When you awoke this morning was it early and with enthusiasm?  Did you have a BIG smile on your face and adventure in your eyes?  Was your heart beating with excitement for a new day?  Were you your own alarm clock?  Or did you awake in a state of drudge?  Was your face scrunched with sleepiness and your eyes still closed even though your body was in motion?  Was your heart racing from the jar of the alarm clock going off right in the middle of the best part of your dream?  How you begin your day is just as important as how you end it.

Before you close your eyes tonight, tell your body what time you want it to wake up how you want to wake up.  Whether it be with happiness, enthusiasm, excitement, be clear on the state you want to start your day in.

When you awake at that exact time or just before, get into action.  Don’t just lay there, get up and go do something!  Pray, meditate, write in your journal, go for a walk, do some stretching or exercise, just get up and into immediate action.  Notice from those two acts how the tone is set for the rest of your day.  You will move through your day with a different kind of energy, focus and intention and when you go to bed, reflect on what you noticed and then start all over again.

Ed Blunt
Life Design Specialist