Thinking Out Loud

I'm getting so excited for my upcoming Prosper Show presentation. It's this next week in Las Vegas where I'm scheduled to teach back to back workshops. One is helping retailers create an Amazon Video Strategy and the other one is teaching them how to leverage YouTube to grow their private label brands. So far, I have over 115 people attending the workshops and they are each paying $349 to be there. I am being paid half of the tuition which means I will earn in one day (5.5 hours of teaching) more money than I earned in my entire first year of teaching. Seriously, my contract as a teacher for the 1999 school year at Weber High was for $20,100. I left teaching as a profession after a few years because I didn't want to be financially tight. I wanted to be able to earn more money so I could better provide for my family. Little did I know then that later, teaching and consulting would provide me considerable income. The other day I was hiking a mountain and I had just re...

I'm amazed at the power of thought. Change your thoughts and you really will change your life. I was driving to work today dreading the tasks that laid ahead. I haven't, for a LONG time, had a dreadful feeling about going to work. It's not normal for me to feel this way as I'm usually excited to get to the office and attack my day. So what did I do? Well, I simply noticed the dreadful thought and decided to change it. It was that simple. I'm not a fan of arguing with my thoughts--I realize they come and go. I am, however, a firm believer in discarding unwanted thoughts. My thought process goes like this: Thoughts emerge I notice them I bring awareness to them and try to understand their genesis I don't judge them as either good or bad, but I do decide whether it's a thought I want to run with or leave behind If it's a thought I want to drop, I create a new thought to replace the spontaneously generated thought I'm not a fan of lett...

I love my new job. It gives me several opportunities to squash my ego. I like to think of my ego as this wild monster whom I stuff into a little box and then sit on top. He's always trying to get out and he hates his little container that I'm constantly stuffing him into. I derive great satisfaction by keeping him at bay, and I am equally amused by its strident attempts to escape! I just finished reading Dr. Dyer's book The Shift. I loved it as much as I love his other works so I had my family watch The Shift last night for family home evening. It's available for free on YouTube because Wayne Dyer is epic like that--he always wanted his content disseminated as freely as possible so that it could bless as many lives as possible. Anyhow, I took notes on ego and I'm pasting them here. I'd like to spend more time caressing these thoughts, but tonight I'm in a crunch so I'll have to come back. But I did a pretty bang up job scribbling down my thoughts in ...

I need someone who can serve as my assistant. I need someone detail-oriented, reliable, fun, and great with excel. I don't care if they come into the office or work from home, but I do have plenty of work to keep them busy full-time. I need them to do keyword research for our product skus, populate our file feed template, and move images on the graphics server. Once all 6,000 products are optimized, they will assist in managing the storefront and any other tasks I get bogged down with. I want someone who is in it for the long haul. Or at least 1-2 years. I can handle turnover every 1-2 years, but I don't want to invest a lot of time training someone and get them humming along just to lose 'em. In fact, I'm thinking this person could be my assistant. I am throwing out to the universe exactly what I need. I trust the universe. It is always sending me exactly what I need right when I need it. In fact, everything I need is already on its way. I will keep my eyes peeled ...

I still remember when I first met Dr. Dyer. I took his book Inspiration with me to Lake Tahoe. Reading it was like a baptism by fire. I had been searching for answers and additional truths, and Dr. Dyer provided me with just what I was seeking. I immediately looked him up with great hopes of connecting with him. I wanted to see if I could study under him or pay him to be my mentor. I was disheartened to learn that he had recently passed away (August 29, 2015). I was so sad. How could he be dead when I knew he was perfect for me? Gratefully, I felt his spirit whisper to me that death was not an obstacle for the work we were going to be doing together. He assured me that he would be with me in spirit and that all of the knowledge and training I needed I could get through the study of his books. That is one of the reasons he had meticulously written so many. So I went to the library and checked out every Dr. Dyer book they had available. And for the past 6 months I have p...

I'm reading a powerful book by Dr. Dyer called The Power of Intention. I love this concept that there exists a universal power source into which we can tap. This power is always available and is the original creative source. By tuning in, or going to our source, we can manifest into our lives anything upon which we set our intentions. The power to manifest really is as simple as setting our intention. And setting our intention is as simple as envisioning that which we want to happen as already being a current reality. I remember the first time I tried this concept. I was struggling to hop into a handstand. After attempting, and failing several times I distinctly said to myself, "I'm never going to be able to do this!" And then I remembered the power of our thoughts--they create our reality. So I quickly corrected myself and said, "I will be able to do this and I intend to do it now." I visualized myself hopping to a handstand. I assumed the feeling of wh...

I've been thinking a bit about relationships. I'm seeing them differently than I've ever seen them before. First, I realize that relationships are created in our minds. What we think about our relationships defines them. If I think my daughter is ungrateful, I will see ingratitude in all her actions. If I tell myself my coworker is annoying, I will find him extremely so.  And so it goes. What we think about others creates how we relate to them. So why not think happy, positive, loving thoughts about the people we relate with? We absolutely have the power to create amazing relationships by changing the way we think about our relations. Second, I've been thinking about the importance of loving the people in our life for who they are, not for what we need them to be. People need freedom to be who they want to be. If you love someone, you don't try to change them. That isn't love. Love is accepting someone for who they are and where they are right now. Love know...