THRiViNG! Life Maps

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy’, she said.

When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice’.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued. ‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’

We drove in silence to the address she had given me.

It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.

She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said, ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.

What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift?

What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

I found the Michael Senoff’s Hard To Find Seminars in 2005. There’s a link at the end of the article.

More than 4 years later, I’m still exploring the site, listening to inspirational, business and mindset audios completely free.

Today he shared this via email:

Subject: They’re watching…

Email Body: Here’s an incredibly cool little story for anyone that’s around kids.

It has nothing to do with marketing, interviews or making money.

There’s this brat little kid we’ve seen at our park the last few weeks.

His name is Jeremy.

He wears a patch on his left eye.

Must be about 5.

There’s been several incidences with this kid’s behavior.

For example..

He dumped water on my kid’s shirt up at the water fountain.

He told my older son Joe his hair looked like a grandmother.

He hit my younger son in the face with a tree branch.

( Don’t worry he’s ok )

He flinged sand in Jackson’s face.

(Jackson’s a dog.)

I reasoned to my sons that Jeremy’s behavior was poor because he was not getting enough attention at home.

Or because of the patch on his eye.

Or because his Dad has not taught him about how to get along with other people.

So this time at the park, my boys were both sitting on the swings.

And Jeremy runs over my kid’s sandals with his bike.

And Jeremy’s mother saw what happened and brought Jeremy over and she said . . .

“Jeremy . .. do you want to say something to the boys”..

Silence

“Jeremy – - YOU neeeed to say your are sorry to the boys.”

And he finally meeks out an insincere sorry.

And then my son Joe says in a loud voice.

( with attitude and expression )

“Sorry for what ?”

Jeremy eye’s perk open ..

But he says nothing.

Joe says again..

“Sorry for what Jeremy ?”

And Jeremy can’t remember.

So Joseph reminds him exactly what he needs to be sorry for.

You need to say you are …

* Sorry for dumping water on my brother at the fountain

* Sorry for hitting him in the face with a branch

* Sorry for dissing my hair and saying it looks like a grandmother

( and it does NOT look like a grandmother. Hmm-pph )

* Sorry for flinging sand in Jackson’s face and

* Sorry for running over our sandals – - with your BIKE.

Jeremy finally got the point and apologized.

I was never so proud of my son.

He stood up for himself.

He stood up for his younger brother and . .

He stood up for the dog, Jackson.

We had to go home because it was time for dinner.

And as we were walking home, I told my boys how proud I was of them.

And I asked . . where in the world did you learn this sorry for what thing.

I said “that was a classic.”

And he said, Dad ….

I learned it form you . .

Michael Senoff

About the Author

Michael Senoff is the CEO and publisher of http://www.myfirsthmaclient.com

The world’s leading free digital consulting audio business library.

Michael is an experienced Internet marketer and talk show host and a popular professional interviewer. Michael has taught 100% online around the country & around the world to more than 50,000 students.

His over-the-top online audio interview web site
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com is listed in the top 1% of most visited web sites in the world.

Michael has also worked as a coach and adviser to other famous marketing consultants.

Michael is a husband and father of two young boys in Southern California. He has a successful audio publishing business. Michael is originally from Atlanta Georgia and is now based in San Diego, California. Michael works with small to medium sized companies on four different continents.

He is the author of the book: “TALK YOURSELF RICH”: (86 of the most revealing, proprietary secrets on the subject of how to make more money with audio interviews and the soon to be released sequel: AUDIO MARKETING SECRETS. How To Make Your Own Information Product Using Audio Interviews.

If you don’t think the youngsters around you are learning about how to deal with life from you, think again.

You deserve your THRiViNG! Life and so do the children watching you.

LaShae

Susan Boyle has tons of fans now.

There are many who think she was hiding her talent, confused by why she didn’t take that talent and storm the world with it. Others of us are talking about how she wowed the judges, the audience and became an overnight sensation with more than 35 million views of just one of the hundreds of videos of her, now on YouTube.

I say, here’s a lady who knew what she wanted, who has also been sharing her talent with the world since she was 12. I would imagine she’s the most regular choir member at Lady of Lourdes because she enjoys singing. She has won the annual singing contest, sponsored by the local lawn bowling club in her small community of Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland, because she loves singing and is an extremely talented singer.

She doesn’t fit ANY stereotype.

She shares her talent with the audience she’s with, always has. She sang right where she was in her town. Spent her own money to record a demo tape. And just to be clear, she stated in the pre-interview before she hit the stage,

“I’ve always wanted to perform in front of a large audience. I’m going to make that audience rock.”

She had to deal with other issues in her life, possibly with her confidence, but not with her singing. Her singing is love, mixed with talent.

One thing she has never done is hide her talent. How could she, she’s been singing since she was 12. She has a demo recorded of two songs, Cry Me a River and Killing Me Softly With His Song. The former song even made it onto a charity compilation CD for Whitmore Academy.

Here’s why I like Susan Boyle. She knows what she wants. She spotted an opportunity and went for it. She was herself the whole time, even being a little bit cheeky on stage. Plus and this just cracks me up, she’s enjoying her sandwich, while others waiting to audition/perform sit around looking just a bit nervous.

The backstory of Susan Boyle’s life will continue to be uncovered. She’s only just beginning this part of her journey.

She hasn’t been hiding her talent from the world. I believe the world hasn’t been ready to accept Susan Boyle for being exactly who she is, how she is or accept her for with what she has to offer. Until now anyway.

She’s always been and I hope will always be exactly who she’s meant to be, Susan Boyle.

Now can we say the same thing?

[UPDATE: If you don't already have a Simpleology account, you will be promted to sign up for one. It again is free meaning you don't pay any money to get it. I have one and have had it for a while, just never did anything with it. Just wanted to let you know.]

Still don’t have a blog to test this out on?

How To Set Up A Free Blog

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”  ~John F. Kennedy~

I was overly ambitious when I set out many months ago with my unplanned desire. I then became overwhelmed and depressed when nothing seemed to be working as I expected it would. I felt as though I had been lied to and bamboozled. Mine wasn’t looking like the thing I had come to expect based what other people had told me.

This is the main reason last week I mentioned letting go of our expectations.

Once we decide what we want to do and make a simple or extremely detailed plan about how we will go about accomplishing it. . .

Wait let me stop right here and ask this because it’s pretty darn important, You are making a plan? Now, nod your head up and down 3 to 4 times. Good. Okay back to it.

Once we decide what we want to do, make our plan, let the expectations go and begin doing the work, we seeing what really happens. It is then that we can pick our expectations up and check them to see if we need to reevaluate the expectations.

This is where coaching with someone who has actually mastered these steps is handy.

When we don’t do this, we are more likely to get caught up in “how things are not showing up according to the expectations we hold” as opposed to taking what is showing up and reevaluating either our expectations or our actions, sometimes both.

That’s what I’m doing, reevaluating both. And just this morning Naomi of IttyBiz.com fame said it in a way that I heard. I’m certain others have pointed it out but I was ready for it to sink in and apply it this time. She said, “ambitious stuff takes a lot of time.”

That’s worth repeating.

“Ambitious stuff takes a lot of time.”

This profound statement is doing one of a few things for and to you as you pursue a dream. It is either stopping you from making the effort, making the effort much more difficult than it need be because you’ve set your expectations wrongly or it will cause you to step back and begin a reevaluation of your plan, actions and expectations.

It is especially helpful to be able to set the right sort of expectation for the plan you have in mind. I’m not just talking optimism either.

This is especially true for a large group of us dealing with other issues popping up constantly, yet still willing to take the leap and start the doing.

It is an ambitious thing we do. It may take us more time. It may require more processing. It may require more and frequent reevaluation. It definitely requires us to be more honest with ourselves.

We are literally screwing up our courage like a tightly wound top and string, then pulling that string, even though we know it’s knotted up and tangled.

There is momentum in the pulling and it keeps us going for a while. But eventually we’ll notice a slow down and finally a stopping and then we are on our side, not spinning, not doing and our expectations are shot to hell.

I believed because it’s not ‘just like we pictured it’ that it couldn’t have counted. Because it did not reach my expectations, that made it no good. I beat myself up. I stayed stopped.

Finally, I put the expectations down and then pulled the string.

I accept that knots may appear. Then again they may not. Either way, I am creating fewer problems for myself, which leaves me more energy to deal with the reality in front of me. I am no longer being caught up in the idea of ‘missed expectation’.

It’s invigorating to be in this sort of space, where thoughts can lead to actions and actions can lead to results.  Where having released our expectations, we are free to adjust our actions or our expectations, accordingly based on actual outcomes.

There may be more about expectations from me later. Right now there is some planning that I need to do, especially since I’m taking my own advice.

If you still don’t know what you want to do, it’s time to delve into 20 Ways to $100 Dollars A Day. It’s one of the few places you’ll get all the details to making for how to do and what to do in the same e-book.

Dream big. Start small. GET CAUGHT THRiViNG!

What happens when you have lots of ideas but never implement any of them?

Crickets start chirping, cobwebs are built and dust bunnies take over but not much else. If it was a good idea (how do you know if you don’t implement it) someone else probably also had a similar idea and took action on it.

Meanwhile you’re still waiting for something to change, planets to line up, the time to be just right. Yes I do know that everything has it’s season. I also know that you will not reap without sowing.

Pull that idea out again, dust it off, clean it up and take one tiny step to move it forward.

For all you procrastinators and naysayers, hey I include myself in this group, there is a step zero, a step before you get to step one.

Step zero is to let the expectations for the idea go. Right now, before you pull idea out again. Before you dust it off. Just let the expectations for it go.

Now breathe from your belly and

Take Step Zero

That’s what I’m doing, reviving this here blog from the depths of cyberspace and time.

I had all these really grand expectations for this space. Oh it was going to become my magnum opus. Yes it was. It was going to be a well traffiked, affiliate selling machine on steroids while it helped other people and me find our power and voice and excel using all that latent potential we’ve been hiding to ashamed, to frightened to share it.

We think that accomplishment only comes from great deeds… Great deeds are made up of small, steady actions, and it is these that you must learn to value and sustain.” ~ “WishCraft” page 106 by Barbara Sher

I wasn’t even able to take those small steps because I was dangling with one hand from a cliff 100 feet above a raging river without a safety net, rope or anything else.

I didn’t want to face my truths so I could Get Caught Thriving. I just kept getting caught. I just kept surviving.

Am I all better now? In a word No. What was wrong will not be fixed overnight but I accept that. I couldn’t follow through on any plans I had for this space until I accepted that.

Acceptance offered the safety net. Acceptance allowed me to clearly see exactly where my strengths and weaknesses were. It also allowed me to understand that what I had learned was wrong.

I don’t need to spend so much time trying to change my weaknesses into strengths. For every perceived weakness I have, there is another person with that strength. I’m calling them perceived because who knew “a dislike of monotony” could be a strength.

We we work together, we all get to work from our strengths. It may also reveal underlying strengths and hidden talents.

That was a huge revelation for me.

The Next Step or a Plan

So moving forward there’s a plan or rather there will be a plan.

This is me dusting off an idea and releasing old outdated expectations that have grown around it.

I’ll leave with a paraphrased quote from David Allen of “Getting Things Done” fame.

“Make sure not to let old thoughts stay around too long, pretending they’re useful when they’re not.”

John Reese went the wrong way when he became an entrepreneur.

Then he figured out the long hidden secret of success and is now able to get everything he wants in 24 hours.

He gives us a very subtle hint about how he went from struggling to get by to getting everything he wants now.

It’s one single, simple, sentence.  You ready for it?

“YOU MUST DO SOMETHING EVERY SINGLE DAY TOWARDS ACCOMPLISHING YOUR GOAL.”

Ah but we’ve heard that before right and we go right on doing what we’ve been doing.

He didn’t tell us to just DO SOMETHING EVERY SINGLE, ’cause we’ve done something and we’re still in a mental, financial loop struggling and ending up exactly where we started.

He tells us to DO SOMETHING EVERY SINGLE DAY TOWARD ACCOMPLISHING [OUR] GOAL.

We’ve got to do the right something, every single day and that requires a long term commitment, imagination, a plan, patience, persistence and willingness.

That. Ain’t. Easy.

We start asking when will I see results?  How will I know it’s working?  What if it’s wrong and I’ve spent all this time committed to doing something every single day?

Those are definitely stumbling blocks if you make them stumbling blocks.

His post hit way to close to where I am now.

If you have no idea what you want to do then get a copy of 20 Ways to $100 Dollars A Day.  It’s a very good place to start.  I’m combining the blueprints on pages 122, 176, 222 and 231.

With that said, how about we make a plan for the remainder of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.  Then we commit to following that plan by doing something every. single. day until we GET CAUGHT THRiViNG!

Then rinse and repeat.

You gonna join me?

It’s always difficult to talk about power with people who believe they lack power. I’m not necessarily just talking about financial or political power either. I’m talking about something much more personal, much more basic, required to survive and to thrive.

If you believe nothing is ever your fault or you were wronged (I did).

If you say things like, if only they would do x then I could, would, have or be… (check).

If it appears that everyone else is always better off than you are (checkmate),

I might wonder, who’s got the power? And wonder I did because I certainly didn’t have any power. First I thought it was my parents fault. Then it was the schools and teachers fault. Next I blamed racism, sexism, religion, society, politicians, leaders, corporations, governments anyone at all, except me.

So I started reading and thinking and writing and thinking some more. I started watching people I thought had the sort of power I wanted and watched what they did, how they thought, how they responded. The catalyst in this watching process became an email from Tom Justin. I have been on Toms email list for 367 days as of today. I received his first email on July 4, 2007.

I found myself angry after reading the first few of his emails to me. He kept talking about the power of NO. He started telling me I am powerful. I am influential.

He made me angry by suggesting that I use this power and put myself out there, become open to people and open to people telling me NO. That NO was and is a good thing. He even offered to share with me some ways on, “How to Use the Power of NO.¹” How dare he? Who did he think he was?

Who was he, to tell me I have power when everyone else, my friends, my family, my boss is telling me different? Who was he to tell me I am responsible for using my power or to even suggest what power I might have.

It’s not true. It can’t be true because if I had power, my life would be completely different. If I had power, if only I had power I could . . .

His emails made me want to argue with him, make a point of proving him wrong, proving to him I didn’t have power. Thank goodness, I failed. I’m honestly grateful because failing means I am uncovering, discovering and recovering my personal power.

So who’s got your power? Really. Because if you aren’t using it, or aren’t aware of it, your boss, your friends, your family, someone else, someone other than you, is using it.

Here on the GET CAUGHT THRiViNG! blog, I want you to succeed. I want you to aim for your dreams. I want you to soar with your power.

I want you to find out about your personal power. I want YOU to acknowledge and use your personal power. Read what Tom has to say, (just click on the colorful and underlined text above) and if what he says speaks to you in any way, take action.

It’s your power. Accept it. Own it. Use it to make your life, your world better. I am.

Want to discuss it, comments are open. Let’s grow from here.

This post inspired by Tom Justin and YOU, if..

You’ve been caught up, caught out and caught in the act, now . . . GET CAUGHT THRiViNG!

¹ Tom Justin is the author of "How to take NO for an Answer and Still
 Succeed" and offers "How to Use the Power of NO" as a free download.
 Take some action, use your power.

You can download the missing Warrior Forum Thread which gives you even more ideas about how to take your online marketing skills to offline businesses.

Just right click and save the report Online Marketing Goes Offline

Have you listened to the radio show and heard Andrew Cavanagh discuss this idea?  No. Listen to the streaming audio at GET CAUGHT THRiViNG, and follow the formula for success.

His formula YCGRSOYA is guaranteed to get businesses to pay you for your online marketing skills.

Want to know the meaning of YCGRSOYA you have to listen to the streaming audio or get the free report Online Marketing Goes Offline.

There’s only ONE way to get caught…GET CAUGHT THRiViNG!