Marty Floyd’s Weblog

Wow!

I took a break this past winter. I worked on some personal projects. Painting inside and outside, ripping out my master bath and pulling a “Bob Villa” style do-over. I patched my roof, tore down my pool.

This past March I went down to Charleston S.C. to attend a funeral. My aunt, the one who basically taught me to water ski and had the most infectious laugh, was gone physically.

I was a reality shock for me. She was only 16 years older than me. I felt as though my life was slipping away. I know it becomes natural to “feel mortality” but I was not ready yet. I muddled along until spring was warm and breezy.

I started working in the yard pulling weeds, cutting off pieces of trees that were damaged by a particularly wet and snowy winter.

I tore out flower beds, re-mulched and replanted the beds. I had carpet torn out and new carpet installed.

I did a big shake up of personal items. I took one room at a time (it did not matter to me….I am the project manager for this segment. I am the person responsible. THEN I MADE A BARGAIN. I said that if I could find currency with the object I would sent it over for review/reconditioning. If the item better served an older requirement or was of no particular use/advantage it got dumped.

I made the comment that if anything was special to somebody they should take a picture of it and then say goodbye to it.

That is kind of where I am today. Do I really need this and if so why?

This process takes away from the hoarding mentality. It provides mobility, saves time, resource and money.

With the pictures you may still conjure up the memories and feelings that are good or important.

Think about what is collected, why is it collected, what advantage it provides other than satisfaction of impulse. This is one reason retail grocery stores in particular place cute or tasty items next to the checkout stations. They count on the old queue concept that they analyze to their benefit. If they know the checkout line will consistently have 4-6 patrons waiting it becomes easier to move (sell) small items. Do the thought process fairly often on what, why, what and it becomes natural. You end up with a good system of inventory, storage facilities and usable materials. You also don’t have to spend days getting STUFF ready so you can spend all day on Saturday having a yard sale and/or donating the stuff that has kept you from finding many things you knew were out in the garage somewhere.

Time on the other hand is different. It is given freely, for a price, or is taken and becomes lost. Time is a lot of things but patience is not one of it’s better qualities. Time decides “how long” and gives no more. It is gone. Take close heed of your time. Once spent it can not be spent again.

Stop, find your quiet place, relax, decompress and allow any stress to leave your space.   Clear current thoughts. Breath. Repeat your key word like “OHM” over and over while watching your breathing pattern slow down. Now choose what you want to focus your mind and energy on. Solve some problem or create an easier solution or a safer solution or a more productive solution. You can even waste some time looking at those animals that seem to pop up every time you take some time to just be, to look at the clouds and say what better way to spend my time right now.

Take some time.

Check your ATTITUDE

Then 
———-

I was sent the bulk of this as a “read this” and decide whether you want to delete it or share it.
Obviously I want to share it and add some of my thoughts to it.

READ THIS

LET IT REALLY SINK IN

John is the kind of guy you love to hate.  He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, ‘I don’t get it!’

‘You can’t be a positive person all of the time.  How do you do it?’

He replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or…you can choose to be in a bad mood

I choose to be in a good mood.’

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or…I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life.

‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘Life is all about choices.  When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.  You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line:  It’s your choice how you live your life.’

I reflected on what he said.  Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?’

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices:  I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.’

‘Weren’t you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?’  I asked.

He continued, ‘…the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’.  I knew I needed to take action.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,’ said John.  ’She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity”.

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live.  Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude…I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

I learned from a “much read” Bible, “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem” by Wayne W. Dyer and another book titled “Think and Grow Rich”.

You have some choices now if you want to make them:

01. Get a Bible; use it
02. Get Wayne Dyer’s book; use it
03. Get this book (Think and Grow Rich) from me on 17 rules; use it
04. Go read my other blog articles

Express your self by sitting quietly, clearing your mind of all your thought chatter (”meditate” as Deepak Chopra says), then listen to your Anima (animus, Eros, Logos and soul-image). Check your Attitude (readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way, based on the underlying psychological orientation). Use your basic psychological functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensation and Intuitive Types. The whole psychology of an individual is his habitual ATTITUDE! Be a better friend, adapt, and forget about ego as possible. Energy, motion, and soul can accomplish so much.

Stand above the crowd! Express who you really are, not what you can accumulate materialistically.

——————

The Giants won the Super Bowl last night by upsetting the previously undefeated Patriots!

Reportedly 1.5 million people were expected to call in sick today. If the average income of these people was $20.oo per hour, the cost of this practice would cost $30,000,000 per hour or $240,000,000 for the day in lost productivity!

Now everyone knows we don’t work eight hours a day. But practically speaking if the same math were used with my experience factor of .67%, then we still lost about $160,000,000 in productivity. The general population will have to bear the burden of this expense by paying a higher price for consumer goods and services.

Many companies do not pay for single day sick leave usage without a doctor’s note. After all it really is a medical benefit, not a right of extra time off from work.

The average 30 second commercial ad cost for the Super Bowl was $2,700,000. “Not a lot of money” is what I have heard regarding the expense as a percentage of “advertising budget” for the companies that did advertise. But, then again, we the consumer pay for those costs too.

So on this day, 2-4-2008, I am a little in awe that we don’t seem to have a big problem with some spiralling costs. I’ll bet a lot of people do not know that the company that has recently become the largest profit taker of any company in U.S. history for a quarterly and annual profit ( $11.7 billion, $40.6 billion respectively) is Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil produces about 3 percent of the world’s oil and had sales of $404.5 billion for 2007!

I think that I have written enough this morning after Super Bowl. I am going back to bed and dream of sawbucks or gold dust or the next Super Something.

This particular post is being placed in all my categories (as of September 27, 2007) as it applies to you just as much as me.

I started working on this post on a sheet of paper (an envelope) from a birthday card I received last week. My birthday is September 23rd and presented a good time for reflection.

I thought about my earlier “experiences” with art (paintings, music, books, TV, radio, cartoons in the newspaper, movies). I especially loved Picasso, future stuff, Flash Gordon, the Disney cartoons and movies, “2001, A Space Odyssey”, the Bible, Carl Sagen, baseball, GI Joe, “The Flying Purple People Eater”, Mickey Mantle, Elizabeth Taylor, Billy Jean. And they were all site and sound!

I have been a truly fortunate person. I have experiences that I still hold in memory. They are better than watching the latest high definition digitally encoded movie on CD for the “unpteenth” time. Some memories actually come with smells, touches, tastes, perfect audio and video!

Think for a moment about something that became truly mapped into your brain, psyche, and soul. Something along the lines of the birth of a child or the thrill of “knowing” you created a positive, lasting experience. What about the “experience” of discovery, freedom, faith? Something as simple as swinging on a swing (at home, a park, or on a tree rope over a lake or pond) or hitting a home run bring in all the senses, known and unknown.

Our capacity to learn, know, be unique, yet the same, is truly amazing! I have learned that the strength of positive inner feelings and mental attitude are far more powerful than negative ones. The negative ones are like weeds. They just grow when we do not engage in intentionally planting and growing the good, positive ones.

I created a web page that is a collection of some of the articles and thoughts I have “experienced” in this my birth month. I hope you take the time to visit soon at my web page.

Even this commercial brings thoughts flooding in on a very personal level,

Sleepy Hollow? Soft, smooth, fragerant, tight, tanned skin? Richard Scary, Stephen King? Star Trek, Star Wars? Bats, Batman? Pumpkins, Jack-o-lanterns? It could go on and on the longer you look at the advertisement.      

Goals, values, clarity, success, self-trust, self-esteem, intent, action, harmony, integrity, and beliefs are some of the types of quotes that come to my mind.

World leaders, writers, and sales people (advertising even) come up with sayings that stick over time to become part of what we believe in leading our lives. Some examples that have been with me for most of my life are as follows:

• “Simply believe” - my mother
• “Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision.” - Muhammad Ali
• “In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” — Anthony Robbins
• ‘Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.’  — Bruce Barton
• “Faith and initiative rightly combined remove mountainous barriers and achieve the unheard and miraculous. An enthusiastic attitude is nothing more than faith in action.” - Henry Chester
• If you seek to understand the whole universe you will understand nothing at all but seek to understand yourself and you will understand the whole universe. - Druidic Axiom
• “In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus 
• “I believe we all have greatness in us and our “life task” is to dig deep (into ourselves) and find the greatness that is within. It is here we find peace and purity of purpose, our true self. This quiet place inside is where we find that all things are possible. Our journey begins when we take our very first step towards our dream to make it reality.’ - MD Floyd

The previous one (MD Floyd) is one I made up some time ago after several setbacks and disappointments in people I trusted, as well as, myself. Life is so much better when you imagine no limitations and you create your picture of living.

According to SEDLAR & MINERS, an executive search and transition coaching firm, I have derived the following self-assessment of my drivers from the 85 drivers they developed as motivators for working people.

 I would suggest getting and reading their book, “Don’t Retire, REWIRE!” for anyone trying to develop a personal roadmap of what matters and what you really want to do with the rest of your life.

It is an easy read and a good “prompter” for a critical assessment of where you are in your life and what makes you feel that zest for personal contribution in living the rest of your life on purpose.

Living on purpose makes everything matter.

Now for my motivators or “drivers” -  

Accomplishments

Bigger  Focus

Control

Creativity

Experiment

Financial Independence

Goals

Lifestyle

Obligations

Personal  Reward

Problem-solving

Respect

Satisfaction

Service

Skills and Talent

Structure

Time

Value

Take the time to make a list of your accomplishments. Then pull out what it was that “felt right” about them. Moreover, are there more of the same, or other accomplishments, you want in your life? Make a plan to have them and work that plan for the fullness of your life.

I just returned from a seminar by Dr. Tony Attwood that was for hosted for information on Asperger for professionals and parents.

Dr. Attwood is one of the best speakers I have ever listened to for any length of time as he imparted his expertise on such a far-reaching topic with knowledge, facts and humor.

This is a great resource for anyone interested in friendships, relationships, and human development. He discussed how important childhood, teen, and early adult interactions can make a tremendous difference in people’s lives.

He also discussed how important exercise and work are in human emotions and self-worth. The human condition can be such a positive journey with proper knowledge and experience guiding a child’s development into a confident, self-assured person of value!

Knowledge and understanding are of tremendous value when working with an autistic or asperger child as a teacher, sibling, parent or friend!

For those interested in further information from one of the best I have seen or read on this topic please refer to Dr Attwood’s web site at    http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/   

Being fired can often provide a jolt to start your own business. Entrepreneurs are becoming much more common as self-employment has climbed 10.6 percent this year alone according to a Chicago-based outplacement firm.

During the first quarter of this year some 139,269 layoffs have been reported by the Labor Department.

Sometimes it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Some examples of people who were fired, or released, and found success are:

• J.K. Rowling (billionaire writer) was fired as a secretary for writing short stories at her computer. She used her severence to start the “Harry Potter” series.
• Walt Disney (DisneyLand) was fired from a newspaper for having a lack of ideas.
• Michael Bloomberg (20 billion dollar media mogal, New York mayor) was released from his wall street company when restructuring took place.

Being a sole-proprietor, or a one-person consultant business , I am one of the 78% of all US businesses that have no employees. I have also had the fortune of having been “released” from a contract. I used some contents and ideas in books I started to devour such as “Manifest Your Destiny”, “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire”,  and “The Thinker’s Toolkit” to begin to make my own luck and become my version of success!

The Seven Deadly Sins

Truth, if it becomes a weapon against persons.
Beauty, if it becomes vanity.
Love, if it becomes possessive.
Loyalty, if it becomes blind, careless trust.
Tolerance, if it becomes indifference.
Self-confidence, it if becomes arrogance.
Faith, if it becomes self righteous. Ashley Cooper, writer

It is great to believe and feel these feelings without the “ifs” that turn them deadly.

Seven is used frequently in the scriptures to signify completeness. It has reference to bringing a project or work to completion. It can refer to a complete cycle of things like in application development when the cycle is called a software development life cycle and it refers to a complete “start to finish” cycle.

Number seven is considered lucky among other reasons for being the number of perfection.

The Bible says that the Universe was created in 7 days.

On dice, where seven is a winning number, to get 7 you need one die on 6 and the other die on 1 of the opposite side. All opposite side numbers adds to 7. Pythagoreans called it the perfect number, 3 and 4, the triangle and the square, the perfect figures.

There were seven ancient planets. Seven visible planets and luminaries (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

Throughout the ages the number 7 had defied the law of averages, the science of mathematics. For many of the most powerful and wealthy, the number 7 is a symbol of luck, of good fortune.

Perhaps that is why so many advertisements and “famous” lists contain the number seven (evoking the thought of good fortune by following the information). Such an example is “Some Rules for Success” sounds ok, but “The 7 Rules for Success” not only sounds easier to accomplish it is subconsciously almost a guarantee of completion and perfection.