Developing Your Warrior Within
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Personal development is a lifetime commitment to one’s own greatness. It is not a weekend project. Stepping into the powerful character qualities that cause one to take risks, stand in one’s boldness, be a man or woman of honor and integrity can stretch one to becoming a powerful leader.
For that matter becoming vulnerable, compassionate, giving, loving and forgiving could be the stretch one needs to live in one’s greatness. And that might mean taking on the fiercest opponent of all. Your deepest gut level reactions, your beliefs, and your programs.
In Brian Klemmer’s first BEST SELLING book, IF HOW-TO’S WERE ENOUGH WE’D ALL BE SKINNY, RICH AND HAPPY, he calls one’s deepest beliefs our “sunglasses.” At Klemmer & Associates Personal Mastery Seminar one discovers one’s deepest sets of “sunglasses.” As hidden as they might be from our conscious mind the games and exercises played out in the seminars surface them so that they are up close and in one’s face, so to speak.
Now what one chooses to do about them is a different matter. Doing the work to bust up those sunglasses is real warrior training. Taking on one’s deepest beliefs, those gut level responses to life’s circumstances can be the greatest battles of one’s life.
In Japan, during the sixteenth century a peasant boy, who became known throughout Japan as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dreamed of becoming a warrior but not just any warrior. Hideyoshi dreamed of becoming a Samurai. The fiercest of warriors, battled seasoned and completely committed to the whims of their Lords, their Daimyo.
Hideyoshi was not born into the Samurai class. He was born into the poorest of families who relied on farming to survive. However his dream was so big that as he became older he took action that would culminate in his achieving even more than he had dreamt.
Hideyoshi was “short, unathletic, uneducated and decidedly ugly”. “His oversize ears, sunken eyes, tiny body, and red, wrinkled face (“as wizened as a sapless apple”) lent him a distinctly apelike appearance, resulting in the “Monkey” nickname that followed him throughout his life” as stated in the book THE SWORDLESS SAMURAI.
Although he would never master martial arts Hideyoshi became a master of his beliefs, his own sunglasses. He rose from his start as a sandal bearer for his Daimyo to becoming Japan’s supreme ruler. Had Hideyoshi fallen victim to how others viewed his physical stature this would not have been possible. In committing himself to his dream of becoming a Samurai warrior Hideyoshi developed the leadership skills necessary to lead a nation beyond the times of feudal Japan.
What are your self-limiting beliefs that prevent you from creating the life you say you want? Attend Klemmer & Associates Personal Mastery Seminar and surface your sunglasses that are holding you back. Go to www.klemmer.com to enroll into a Champions Workshop where you’ll learn more about Personal Mastery or enroll into one of the online webinars and begin your journey of self-discovery and developing your warrior within.
John Edwards
Advanced Leadership Seminar Facilitator
Returning Home
As long as I can remember I have been flying by the seat of my pants. After college I had to move to the biggest city I could find. I moved to Los Angeles and after a couple of years to Atlanta.
It's All About Family
For me, life was about seeing how much I could do, see and have. A few years ago a neat thing happened to me, I attended a workshop that gave me a snapshot of my life. Since then I have slowed down, gotten focused and created better relationships than I have ever had before.
What happened? Well, a part of me simply returned home. When I used to return home to see my family I was so busy thinking about what I needed to be doing next that I missed special moments with my loved ones that I so desperately needed…. but didn’t even know.
I think its funny how in life we tend to return back to places and things that we once neglected. We often take our past and create such a story that we decide that it would be horrific for us to ever have to relive or revisit any of it.
I have found the opposite to be the case. Once I slowed down, took notice of the conversations that I was having in my head and gave myself a clean slate, I began to enjoy things that I had so often neglected. Family is where it is at for me.
My family is not ‘fly by the seat of the pants’ like me, but they sure are wonderful in who they are. I love to return home now and I have also concluded that we are ALL family anyway, so where ever I go I act as if I am simply returning home. Life sure is rich and I choose to live every minute of it.
Ronnie Doss
Champions Workshop Facilitator
PS – If you would like to slow down and live a rich and fulfilling life, I recommend starting with a free Champions Workshop
The SIX Dirty Words of Personal Development
The SIX Dirty Words of Personal Development
If you were to count how many the times in one day you say the following words: “but, can’t, try and working on it”, you’d be astonished! Without a doubt, these self-limiting words will support you ONLY in your smallness, not in your greatness.
The word but invalidates everything you just said in front of it.
Avoid These 6 Words
The word can’t in reality is saying you won’t. Whatever it is that you’re saying, adding can’t to the sentence just means you won’t. You really haven’t thought it through; it’s just easier to stay in your comfort zone by deciding you can’t. To be quite frank, it’s a victim statement!
The word try is the biggest cop-out going. Sit in a chair. Try to stand up. If you stood, you stood up, you did not try, you did. If you are still seated, you did not stand and therefore you did not try, you sat. As Yoda in Star Wars said, “Do or do not, there is no try.” By saying the word try, you’re actually not even planning to do whatever it is you’re referring to. It just sounds nice. It’s comfortable and we all know that comfortable equals decay.
The words working on it are much like saying you’ll try and you know how worthless that word is. Working on it has no power, no juice, and is all about playing it safe. Either you’re going to do something or you’re not. Working on it sounds good, however, it’s a smoke screen for mediocrity. And you know mediocrity is not extraordinary!
Words have power and your words have particular power because they represent your integrity, character, values and your thoughts! What if you became conscious of your self-limiting words and started to choose the words that supported you in your greatness and not in your smallness? What if you eliminated those decaying words and lived in the language of greatness?
To help you eliminate those words, assign a painful dollar value to each one of them as a penalty when they come out of your mouth. Each time you or someone close to you catches these words coming out of your mouth, the fine gets paid to a fund. This fund is emptied once a week and will be spent on whatever it is your spouse, children, friend or co-worker want for their own satisfaction. Here is a suggestion: But = $3, Can’t = $5, Try = $10, Working on it = $20.
This is a great way to become conscious of the words that come out of your mouth. In doing so, you will be present in your life when you speak and as a result, only speak into your greatness and success. A shift that small and clever can make a huge difference down the road. I challenge you to take this on and let your sphere of influence, those closest to you, support you in this transition. That’s how you play a “Bigger Game in Life!”
To your personal mastery and extraordinary success in 2010 -
Tom Haupt
Why Your Personal Development is Critical
Your own personal development is the key that will unlock everything you want in life – the relationships, health, financial success, and spiritual connection you wish to have. Let’s revisit a classic story from history to uncover why.
In the very early part of the 19th century, two brothers (John and Abe) walked out to a forest to cut down trees. In the spirit of friendly competition they agreed to see who could cut down the most trees in six hours. They arrived at their spot in the forest, and John immediately went about chopping down a tree, while Abe, on the other hand, sat down and began sharpening his axe.
After an hour, John had one tree down and was shocked to see Abe still sitting sharpening his axe. Confident now he would probably win, John went on to the next tree, and an hour later John had a second tree down. Abe, surprisingly, was still sharpening his axe.
John, convinced now there was no possible way Abe could catchup, went on to his next tree. And an hour later, it was down, and at that point Abe stood up and began chopping, while John started on his fourth tree.
After about 20 minutes, John heard a loud WHOOMF and spun around to see that Abe had felled his first tree. “Just lucky” he thought to himself. 20 minutes later, Abe’s second tree fell, and another 20 minutes later his third.
After six hours Abe had felled nine trees, while John had felled six. John’s dull axe blade simply wasn’t capable of cutting through more than one tree per hour, while Abe had ripped through three trees per hour with his razor-sharp blade.
Abraham Lincoln, “Abe,” once said “If I had six hours to cut down trees, I would spend the first three hours sharpening my axe, and the last three cutting down trees.”
“Sharpening your axe” in life is synonymous with personal development. John represents all of the people in the world who work really hard, who want more for themselves and their families, and who can’t understand why life isn’t working out better than it is. They create good results, but will never create outstanding results. Abe represents the miniscule population of the planet (less than three percent) who invest in themselves to sharpen their thinking and their attitudes.
From one perspective, this is what K&A’s seminars are all about – sharpening yourself so you’re more effective. Many of the belief systems we adopted as children, and still unconsciously carry with us, have a dulling effect on our effectiveness in business and relationship. By shifting those belief systems we can become exponentially more effective!
Scott Cundy
Personal Mastery Facilitator
Perspective
Personal Mastery – Perspective
Simply put, what you see is what you get. I though that meant with purchases only. I have learned in the past few years that what I see about my life is what I get more of.
If I choose to look for joy and that is what I choose to see, that is what I get more of. If I look for love and that is what I choose to see in all situations, I get more love. We are such powerful beings and we have an amazing ability to create the world that we want by simply changing how we see it.
Personal Mastery and Perception
Opportunities will pass us by if we are not looking for them or if we have a perspective on ourselves that we can’t achieve the desired result within that opportunity. There is a millisecond between the time that we look at something and we decide what that thing is. In only a millisecond we create our world.
Our interpretation of anything is simply that, our interpretations. From the perspective that we carry about a thing, we attach an interpretation that simply confirms our perspective and gives us the desired result of “being right.” I am trying to reverse engineer my thinking lately and start to see a world that is full of all the love and joy and peace that I desire to experience.
I no longer care to lay my head down at night with anxiety and worry because I simply needed to be right about anything. When I change my perspective, I change my world. Its amazing that what I choose to see is what I get. I guess that old used car salesman was right after all when he said, “What you see is what you get.”
Can you see it? I can.
Ronnie Doss
Champion’s Workshop Facilitator
