Category: positive change

Time for Feeling Better

It is time to start feeling a little better.  I know the world looks like it is caving in on itself. It feels as though when you turn on the news, a new apocalypse to fear is filling the screen.  Maybe it is time to pull the plug on the TV and the press and do something you enjoy.

Find something you love to do and do it.  If you can do it without leaving the house, great.  If your dwelling has a yard, it gets even better, because there could be some sun involved.  If you have a balcony, you have a view.  If you have none of these, you still have yourself, and that is a fortune unto itself.

I have fun reading, painting, talking to people on Zoom, and cooking. The trick for happiness is to remove stress factors.  If you have kids or family that are the stress factors, get them busy with things they love to do, and that gives you quiet time to enjoy what you want to do.

Sometimes we find pain points deep within our thoughts.  In that case, you may need a Counselor or a Life Coach to help you find and remove the pain. These professionals are easy to find, and most will work online these days.  Many are very good.

If you have physical pain, you call a doctor.  If you have something that clouds your thinking and is getting in your way of better thoughts, then you need a professional to help you remove the mental pain. Unfortunately, no one can do it for you. Yet, having someone to help you will save you so much time and aggravation.  And, you will find more time and fewer problems as you continue your journey.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again soon.

We All Do It

Mistakes happen.  We are human and, as such, are not immune to errors.  So, when you make a mistake, what do you do?  Do you cover it up, or do you involve others who can help you set it right?

If you cover it up, it is still an error that you caused.  It is still out there.  Covering it up is like putting a bandage on a festering wound.  It will flare up again.  You will not know where or when, yet the problem will reappear.

If you recognize the mistake and work to fix it, you are doing better.  If you need help, bring in the right people.  Make sure that those who need to know do so.  And let them know and see that you are doing everything you can to make the situation right.

By identifying errors early, and working hard to fix them, you are doing a good thing.  When people see that you are willing to stand and own your mistakes, they have more respect for you.  Those people would instead work with someone who is honest and takes responsibility than someone who does not.

Trust yourself and check your work.  Know that if you make a mistake, there are 7 billion more of us that also cause errors.  You are just a member of a massive club.  Welcome aboard.

Thanks for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

The Time Is Here

As a little green friend on the silver screen once reminded me, there is no trying; there is only doing or not. Either you are doing something, or you are not. There is no in-between.

What projects do you Have on your calendar? What needs accomplishment, and what do you see that is important to you?. What is vital to your business? Or, Important to your lifestyle? Are these projects and ideas started? If not, why?

We all have grand ideas, and yet how many of those magnificent ideas do we accomplish? Money can always be found or gained. And an even bigger question, why not?  We are human beings, and we can do anything we want to and anything we need to accomplish. If we do not know how to do something, we can bring in paid consultants, college interns, or volunteers.

There is only one reason that something gets done, or something fails to make the grade.  The fate of our desires rests in our hands and not the hands of others. If you’re waiting for something, what? And if you’re not expecting something, it is time to get to work.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again soon.

 

 

Future Destinations

Anything worth building does not get built overnight. It takes time. Patience and restraint procured in industrial-sized containers usually provide some assistance.  No matter how greatly we care about the project, we need to go forth with the belief that our end goal will happen. And we must do those things which we believe are required. Patience, and the ability to plan, is essential along with an ability to know what the final destination will look like once we are there.

I have worked most of my adult life, first to become a trainer, and now a life coach. It is something that I have worked my whole life towards, since high school. And just because it took till nearly my second childhood, it is of no less interest or caring to me then when I put my first foot on the path to go forward into the future.

We all have dreams. We all have desires. We need to work at them wisely. Not because they may bring us fame or wealth, instead we work at them because they are the things that our passions need. And, our desires are the glue that holds us to the path that will take us to where we want to go in the future.

How important is sticking to your path? Let me explain it to you like this. You are going to the future, whether you want to or not. You can go there with your plan, to take you where you want to go, or you can just let the future pull you. If the future pulls you, you end up wherever it drops you. And it doesn’t care much where you land. If you walk your path, you hopefully end up where you decided you wanted to go.

I would rather be where I wanted to be than where something just dropped me. The destination, at least, is my personal choice.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

The Challenge

As you probably already know, I am a Life Coach.  Several weeks ago, I was in a training triad (a small group that practices a modality in life coaching) on procrastination. Those who were in my triad gave me a challenge when I told them I had been ducking this work for years. It was a challenge to clean up my art studio. I took up their urge, and even though it took well over a month to complete it, I finally got the art studio cleaned and arranged.

The project was no small undertaking. Everything had to come out of the room. A large amount of sorting had to take place with about a third of the contents and half the furniture planned for donations to the local GoodWill.  It had to go away to make a space for those things I was keeping. If this sounds like over-exaggeration, please take a look at the pictures below.

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Once the room became empty, I made a do-it-yourself craft island out of a 5-tier shelving unit I purchased for $69. The top was pieced together out of bits of wood and other material I had on hand. I then slowly sorted out what could come back and what had to go. Much Of the room’s contents went to Goodwill.

Although I could not freely shop for what I wanted because of the COVID-19 virus, I was able to fashion What I needed from what I had around the house. Everything slowly came together until I ended up with a room that I could work in, and could store what I needed to store within it. The Art Room now looks as you see below.

I sincerely thank my study partners and instructor for giving me this challenge. It helped me to get out of a rut and accomplish something that I had wanted to do for years. I believe I owe them a debt; and, I am not sure I can ever correctly repay it. Although anywhere I can find a way to do so, I definitely shall.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again

We Are Doing It Again

Yesterday I told you that I was not a big proponent of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And yet there is an even larger cry to defund police departments and go in other directions. My question is, “What are you going to do?”

 Who is going to stop people from breaking into stores? Perhaps that would require hiring protection?  Maybe we will need to appoint block captains to do safety and wellness checks.  If we hire enough state troopers to stop speeding and road rage, will the problems go away or just change jurisdiction? Are we all going to need to hire private security firms to protect our homes and families?

Some people in Police Departments have made some vast and horrendous failures to protect the people they serve; there is no doubt about that.  And yet, many terrific people in police departments try hard and are the cause of good things happening daily. I know it’s hard to see the quiet goodness when we have the atrocities shoved in our faces.

Yet, we may want to put trained review boards in place run by the local citizenry.  Review all personnel records and interview each officer to ensure they have earned their place in the department and are the people we want there.  And Replace those who are not genuinely qualified candidates.  We need a reliable and responsible policing agency to protect our businesses, ourselves, and our families.  What we do not need are those who think they can wield life and death at their discretion or those who need to make the right call.

We must understand that many policemen and women are there to do the right thing and help.  We need to encourage those first responders to take a stand for what is right.  And we need to understand that, as the citizenry, we must oversee the protectors.

Time to Stretch

We are built, as a nation, to be a beacon on the hill, destined to be a shining light to help others find the goodness within each person. We are a nation, built as the model giving other countries something to strive to become.  As we look around now, the question becomes, are we still that light, or has our beacon been blocked by smoke and ash?  It is a tough question, and yet, one we have to ponder.

When our citizens are in the street, literally risking life and health to do so, we must ask why.  We are not talking a few malcontents, instead hundreds of thousands protesting in every major city.  From celebrities to politicians, to the backbone of our nation, everyone sees the outrage and the need for change.

When we have the largest outbreak of a world pandemic, something is wrong.  It did not start here, we knew it was coming, and yet we were struck hard.  Many third world countries did better than us in identifying the need for action and putting it in place, being able to save thousands of their citizens. Why didn’t we?

 I am not writing this to complain.  I am not a believer in tossing the baby with the bathwater.  I do believe in stopping to take account every once in a while.  I think making many minor course corrections is better than making one massive course correction.

I am also not saying anyone should expect anything to be handed to them. We are born without a contract or any guarantees in life.  It is up to every one of us to find our way and eventually help with our offspring finding their way also.  If we find happiness, that is great.  There was probably hard work involved to obtain that happiness. 

We each need to do our best for ourselves, our children, and our destiny.  Too many think they are to be given something because of something from their past.  Not true. What they have is the right to the ‘Pursuit of Happiness.’ There is no guarantee either explicit or implied.

What you get in life depends on you and your skills.  Your skills including smart planning, thriftiness, hard work, a little luck, and never taking your eye off your dream.  Can you do this?  Some have and have gone far.  Can you wait for it to come to you? Too many, wait and find themselves with little or none.  If you want the brass ring, you will need to stretch.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Life Is Amazing

When we put down our hates and fears and start walking together rather than marching apart from each other, great things begin to happen. We saw that this week as police and protesters put down their defensive natures to walk together in hope for better actions and understandings. 

Each side took a chance in doing so, yet each side also gained significant rewards for their actions. We are one country, and it is better when we stand as one rather than each group hiding in its fears and doubts.

Together we can do much. Apart we are constrained. Our understanding and knowledge when we are alone are at least cut in half. It is indeed better to be inclusive than exclusive.

Let us hope that this is a start towards new initiatives to work together in solving problems that have lasted for far too long. Together, we can work to resolve many things that have held us back in the past. We can replace chaos with cooperation. Everyone can pull in one direction rather than dragging things apart. Now, we have an opportunity to make great strides to rectify what we could not accomplish in the past.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Need a coach?

I am in the business of helping people. I am a life coach.  I work with people to help define where they want to go in life or a life-stage transition.  I also help them discover the best ways to attain the transformation from where they are to where they want to be.  I look at this as a crucial position that I have worked my entire life so far to attain.

Some people just sit and wait for life to hand them something.  Some people have some desire in a multitude of career fields. And some people know what they plan to accomplish in life.  Regardless of what group they are in, they are all in need of help, advice, and some training on the critical thinking that will assist them in saving time and money in getting to where they want to be.

 That is where the life coach can be of great use.  A life coach will not tell you what to spend, what to choose, and where to go.  The life coach is there to help you examine the alternatives for yourself.  Coaches ask questions you might not have thought to ask yourself. They help you to plan your route to your future through Socratic questioning. 

Coaching costs are minor when looking at the whole process of plotting your path.  Yet how much more would it cost for you to get somewhere and find out that was not where you wanted to be?  What if you talk yourself out of your life’s dream because of limiting beliefs and find out later that those limiting beliefs are false?  Would work with someone up-front help you?   It does for many people.

I cannot tell you that I can cure all woe’s and answer all questions.  I cannot. If you desire, I can work with you and help you to ask the questions and find the information that you may need.  If you are interested, my email is mikeb@reveille.rocks.  You can also schedule an appointment on my website: www.reveille.rocks  Inquiries and sessions are kept confidential. With the internet, we can talk anywhere in the world.  I can work on ZOOM or Facetime.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Explosive Times

Put a world of people into quarantine for about four months.  Add a group of agitators that are looking for an excuse.  Give a horrendous social tragedy that is filmed and played over and over again.  Pull back a little on leadership and let it ferment. What do you get in response?  Anarchy on the streets.

Is anarchy the solution? No. Chaos will only lead to more bloodshed, fraying of laws, and fear, which will lead to more mistakes.  We need something better.

Is looting and burning a solution?  It takes one night to loot stores out of business and burn the business district to the ground. It will take a decade to rebuild to the point you were at when the burning started.  The burned-out buildings were your neighborhood. Your neighbors are now out of a job.  Maybe you find yourself on food stamps and the public dole. Will you be able to afford housing? At the end of looting and burning, what have you done that helps anyone?

The time is for all parties to reach out and find common ground to talk.  Stop playing atrocities on TV and online every 15 minutes.  Protests are best when they are non-violent.  All parties should march together in solidarity against hatred, not just focus violence on each other. If we have come this far as a country, we should have the ability to fix this and move forward as a nation.

It is one man’s opinion.  Let us fix this without carnage and mayhem. Adverse actions do not lead to lasting improvements.  We can go forth together and find new ways to do better and make our nation the beacon of hope that it was born to be.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.