Planting Seeds For Your Future

What are you planting? – A Story

by Connie Mcknight 
Here’s a story to inspire you to be the best you possibly can. I hope you enjoy it, and like Jim, admit it didn’t work.

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. “The young executives were Shocked, but the boss continued. “I am going to give each one of you a SEED today – one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.
I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one
I choose will be the next CEO.”

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by — still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO. “Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!”

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!”

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed – Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!

His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed.

“How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.

Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!”

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
* If you plant hard work, you will reap success
* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

Think about this for a minute….

Dream Grand Dreams Only by Gidget Giardino

 Pay attention to your dreams; the ones you are conscious of and the ones you aren't conscious of.  If it is true that we are what we think about most, we had better start paying very close attention, and, only let in what our hearts truly desire. 




by Daniel Wood

If you are interested in personal development you have probably heard Brian Tracy’s words, “You are what you think about most of the time”. 

It is true, by thinking about something enough you push it into your subconscious, your mental computer that works 24 hours a day.

Dreams are your window to the mental computer
When you dream your conscious turns off, giving you a view of what is going on in your subconscious. 

You most important work will be done when you sleep. Your mind will be working without your conscious getting in the way, it will be solving problems you don’t even know you have and present your with solutions you didn’t realise your needed.


What you think becomes what you dream
Your dreams mirror your thoughts. It is your subconscious.
By pushing a message into your subconscious it will be a part of your dreams. But to get something into your subconscious takes effort. You need to think about it constantly, write it down, visualize it, repeat it to yourself and almost become obsessed by it.

You are what you dream
Once you have pushed your thoughts into your subconscious you will start dreaming about solutions.
You will then start to see changes in the world around you and before long you will become what you have dreamed about.
In shorter time then you can imagine you can do extra ordinary things.

If you have read “Think and Grow Rich” By Napoleon Hill, he shares this advice in his book and shows examples of how some of the most successful men and women have changed their lives and gone from rags to riches in just a short matter of time.

Change your mental programming
Most of us have a knack for dwelling on the negative, the danger of this is that you will be pushing this into your subconscious, making your mental computer work on solutions to give you even more greif.
If you are to succeed you have to change your mental programming, you have to become a more positive person, focusing on the good and on solutions.
This can be done in mainly 2 ways.

Affirmations
Keep repeating positive messages to yourself throughout the day, for example a cure for low self-esteem is to repeat over and over again hundreds of time a day “I like myself, I like myself”. A solution for low work moral is “I love my work”. If you want to rekindle the romance in a relationship it can be enough to repeat to yourself day in and day out “I love my wife/partner”.

 This will push it into your subconscious and your will start finding solutions to make it reality.

Goal Setting
The other way is by clearly stating your goals in writing. When you have your goals in writing it becomes easier to dwell upon them. You can spend time reading them every day. You can write down plans, think about ideas and so on. 

All this will push your goals deaper into your subconscious and help you speed up your success.

Conclusion
Getting your subconscious working on your goals will bring you closer to success because your subconscious works on solutions 24 hours/day every day.

It will present you with new ideas, insights and plans. 
Remember that the most important thing is that you act on these ideas and insights, because no plan ever mattered that wasn’t put into action.

Why Be Mean? by Gidget Giardino

In the book The Four Agreements, it clearly states (in massive repetition) to be impeccable with your word. Meaning, when you speak with others you need to be honest without being unkind. When you make negative or nasty comments to someone else it imprints them with bad feelings about themselves, and maybe even you. 


If you think about it, in most cases, you really have no reason to say negative or unkind words. The bad thoughts running through your mind are more about you than they are about the person you are with. Realize this is what is happening and only focus on the positive. 


You choose how you feel. 
Choose to be HAPPY, 
choose to be POSITIVE, 
choose to be GREAT.

Be Proud by Gidget Giardino

BE PROUD of even the smallest accomplishments. They are the building blocks to greatness. And, YOU ARE GREAT!

If every day you did one thing, just one thing to improve yourself or build your business, at the end of the week you'll be amazed. Keep achieving these little mini goals and by the end of the month your be thrilled to see how far you've gone. Imagine where you'll be, how grand your life is at the end of the year!  

Now, I know all about making new year resolutions that never get off the ground. I used to be one of those people. It all boiled down to discipline. Taking the extra few minutes each and every day to actually do the things you know you need to do in order to have a better life, or having the willpower to quit doing the self destructive habits you have. Because you are afraid you can't shake them isn't going to make them go away, and it certainly isn't going to improve your life.

Take it one day at a time. If something is truly important to you, you will make it part of your daily routine to improve. It isn't as hard as it seems. You just have to take a deep breath every morning and live your life the way you know you need to.

 

BE PROUD of your positive improvements. Even if they seem small. All your accomplishments add up to greatness. And, you ARE great!

Are You Happy?

The Head Games of Happiness
by Darren Hardy

What makes you happy… really?

That’s a serious question… maybe one of the most important questions of your life. But did you know most people can’t answer it correctly?

In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard professor Dan Gilbert explains that most of us think we know what makes us happy, but typically we are wrong.

I have found there are three major traps in which you might be unknowingly making yourself unhappy.

The first unhappiness trap is postponing happiness. The “when I (fill in the blank), I will be happy” syndrome. The reality is that happiness isn’t something to be acquired in the future. You are either happy now or not; “then” never arrives. Living and striving for “then” results in a constant state of unhappiness. Now is the only time you have to be happy. If you can’t be happy now, you most certainly will not be happy later.
The second unhappiness trap is we spend our lives trying to make other people happy, which can make us very unhappy. Many times we are living a life we didn’t even choose ourselves. We might have simply, and unconsciously, started pursuing the idea of happiness programmed by our parents, peers, societal culture, or the examples given to us by Hollywood or commercialism. Whose idea of success are you living out?
Third unhappiness trap is contrast. For the most part happiness is really an illusion. In other words, you make up the idea of whether you are happy or not. And you really only know how to judge something by comparing it to something else. Typically this means comparing yourself to other people. This is dangerous business because there will always be reference points that will cause you to be unhappy.

The bottom line is this, happiness is not derived from the outside, it is only derived from within. Happiness is a state of mind. And you can continually choose to be happy.

Here is the best way I know to live in happiness—live in gratitude. When you focus on all you have and all that you are, right now, that is where happiness is born. Once it is born now you can nurture it further by discovering those other experiences that bring you increased joy, happiness and exhilaration.

http://www.darenhardy.success.com/

Decide What You Want by Gidget Giardino

When we were babies we knew exactly what we wanted. We knew when we were hungry, needed to be changed, wanted to be held. If we saw something we liked we moved toward it. No question, we were born to instinctly go for what we wanted.

So what happened?
Someone told us we couldn't have everything simply because we wanted it.

The problem with that is, we can have what we want, do what we want, be what we want. Scientists used to believe we responded to information flowing into our brain from the outside world. Today they are learning we respond to what our brain expects to happen. Because our brain expects something to happen a certain way, often what we expect is exactly what does indeed happen.

Stop settling for less than what you want. When you are confronted with a choice, no matter how small or insignificant, act as if you have a preference. Be clear about what you want. You will find yourself taking control and feeling better and better about having exactly what you want in your life.

Decide What You Want.

Toxic US by Gidget Giardino

Why is there a governing body in Europe for the ingredients used in making personal care products yet there isn't anyone looking out for the US? We are supposed to believe something is safe just because the bottle has the word "natural" on it. That is a crock of crap. A big one.

The United States does not have an kind of true rules and regulations in place to protect the American people from the poisons in the personal care products we use each and every day. We should all be outraged. Even some baby products have harmful chemicals known to cause cancer. Why? When the European Union forbids known toxic chemical use, why doesn't the US?

The very same companies who produce these toxic products for the US are doing business in the EU, and producing the same products for them toxin-free! I don't know about you, but..... that makes me angry!

You Are Not Dead Yet. by Gidget Giardino

Remember being a little kid. It was Saturday morning that thrilled us. We'd jump out of bed and run to the television (they were HUGE back then) and put on cartoons. Saturday was the only day of the week they were on and it was only on in the morning. We would not miss them for the world!

Now, jump ahead in time to present day and think about how different it is. You can literally find cartoons on any hour of the day or night with cable, satellite or Internet. We are in an age of instant gratification. It is exciting! No longer do you have to wait to watch cartoons. In that same sense most people can have what ever they want because technology, innovation and willpower have given us so much freedom.

The question of the day is: What have you done with your freedom?

Today you can decide to go out and watch a movie, or visit with friends, or stay in bed, or just about anything else you could think of. But did you? Today you can decide to become a millionaire, or end world hunger, or change a persons life for the better. But will you?

When you were a kid you had big dreams. Did you make your dreams come true? You know, the dreams you had when you were a kid running for the TV on Saturday morning? The majority of you will answer this question with a big fat NO. The thing about it is, it doesn't matter if you didn't make your dreams come true. Because you are not dead. You just haven't made your dreams come true. YET!