Posterous,

So what is the key to getting ahead in the KNOWLEDGE AGE we live in?  There is one key that cannot be overlooked…

Click here:  http://quma.net/scott-sandberg

Quma Learning Systems, Inc.

info@quma.net

To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit:
 https://qumalearning.infusionsoft.com/opt?o=0&i=23510&m=8711&e=1e52592b

Quma Learning
505 So Val Vista Dr
Suite #4
Mesa, AZ 85204
(480) 545-8311

Delivered By Infusionsoft

Posted via email from qumalearningsystems’s posterous

Admittedly, this concept is not original with me. It is found throughout the annals of mankind. As an example, let me paraphrase something Paul of Tarsus wrote to a group of Christians in Rome two millennia ago: Let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only that, let us rejoice in adversity and challenges also; knowing that adversity and challenges develop patience and perseverance. And, patience and perseverance develop character and strength; and character and strength produce hope and confidence that, in turn, yield the joy that God intends for us.

Modern Example:  Running a Marathon

A friend shared this experience:  “When I first thought about running a marathon, the goal seemed  formidable and frightening.  How in the world could I run, or even walk, 26.2 miles?  The first month, I started run-walking one or two miles. By the end of the second month, I was able to run a 10K (6 miles). It wasn’t easy, but it gave me a great feeling of accomplishment when I first did it. 

“By the third month, 6 miles was not a big deal.  I could do it fairly easily. So, I started stretching my distances—meaning, I started stretching myself.  Each time I set my mind to go beyond my current “limit,” my body seemed to whine and balk at it.  But every time I made my body do what I wanted to do, I received a feeling of great joy and confidence when I did it. I also noticed that after I had pushed my body to a new limit, it seemed to accept it.  After running that distance a few more times, it became fairly easy, whether it was 6 miles, 12 miles or 20.  

“Every time I achieved a new goal, I could tell my body became stronger.  Even better, I became stronger and more confident as a person. 

“Five months after I first set my goal of running a marathon, I did it.  Not only did I finish, but it wasn’t nearly as grueling as I had first imagined. Amazingly, in many ways running the marathon was easier than my first 10K (6-miler).

“That’s when I learned for myself a lesson that I’d heard many times before but had never applied: Our fears hold us back and keep us from realizing high goals and reaching our potential. Fear makes a lot of things appear to be much harder and more painful than they really are.   

More Thoughts from Abraham Maslow

“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth.  Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

 “What one can be, one must be…. Even if all needs are satisfied, we soon develop a new discontent and restlessness, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for.”

 “People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease in their clamor only when they are used sufficiently.”

 “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write poetry, to ultimately be at peace with himself.”

 You Can Do Hard Things

           One night my wife, Susan, was helping our son Christian with his English homework.  He was in about sixth grade at the time.  To understand the dynamics of this experience, you need to know that Christian was born with profound, bilateral hearing loss.  The way Christian has dealt with his deafness has been a remarkable example of The Ownership Spirit in itself.  He is a true inspiration to me and many, many others.  One of his courageous choices was to be mainstreamed in the public school system.  This he undertook with enthusiasm and a positive attitude.  Although this route was more challenging in many ways, Christian excelled. He did well socially as well as academically, earning mostly A’s and B’s.  But, his toughest class, by far, was English.

            If you have mastered a second language, I extend my sincere respect.  That is no small feat.  If you have mastered English as your second language, my respect for you climbs even higher.  The English language is fraught with so many quirky rules it’s a formidable challenge to master it.  If you couple that with the fact that Christian can’t even hear it, then you get some idea of what a challenge English has been for him. 

            So, now picture that one night Susan is helping Christian with his English.  He had learned one of the quirky rules and applied it, and it worked.  Then he encountered one of the exceptions to the rule and it threw him for a moment.  He put his pen down firmly on his notepad and said in the unmistakable tones consistent with his deafness, “This is sooo haaarrdd.”  There was a pause and then Susan, gently but firmly responded, “Yes, Christian, it is very hard. “But you can do hard things.”

            That statement has become a mantra—a scripture—around our home. I can’t tell you how many times that thought has given me inspiration to keep battling as I have encountered obstacles in my path since that time.

Thoughts are not only powerful, they are, in fact, power.  Literally.

An infinitely comprehensive law of conservation prevails in the universe: Matter cannot be created out of nothing; neither can it be “destroyed.” The same holds true of energy. Energy cannot be annihilated. One reality (matter or energy) can be converted to the other, but neither can be destroyed.  The sum of mass-energy in the universe never changes.

We are only beginning to scratch the surface of our ability to measure thoughts and activity in the mind. Someday we will discover more accurate ways of measuring the mind and will prove that it is the highest manifestation of energy-matter on the spectrum. Through the power of thought, mankind has already harnessed many prodigious forms of energy to an impressive degree. It remains only a matter of time and development until we harness them all. This is nothing more nor less than a case of the lesser becoming subject to the greater.

Thoughts are just as tangible and just as real as the chair you are sitting on as you read this blog.  Yet, thoughts have amazing properties, excelling most energy-matter.

Thoughts are literal forms of energy. And this energy can be focused and directed, and has supremacy over all other forms of energy and matter. Furthermore, your ability to control and wield this power can grow and increase. Your ability to do so is a measurement of and proportionate to your current level of faith and internal strength—or, in other words, your level of mind management.

Your internal environment has power over your external environment the moment you choose to exercise control.  You can alter circumstances and events at will by first creating a vision of what you want to have happen and then giving yourself permission to enact it.

Moment by moment, thought by thought, you author your own script.  You do it actively or passively.  Either way, you are ultimately the cause determining which effects occur. People are only victims of circumstance if they believe that they are and take a passive approach, letting their lives become subject to outside forces. Each one of us stands as a creative force of immense potency and potential.  Believing that truth is half the battle.

Noted cognitive psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, stated, “We humans have real self-awareness. We can, though we do not have to, observe and judge our own goals, desires, and purposes. We can examine, review, and change them. We can also see and reflect upon our changed ideas, emotions, and doings. And we can change them. And change them again—and again!”

An even more definitive medical study was published by Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley in The Mind and The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force.

Contrary to the notion that the brain has fully matured by the age of eight or twelve, with the truly crucial wiring complete as early as three, it turns out that the brain is an ongoing construction site. The hardware of the brain is far from fixed at birth. Instead, it is dynamic and malleable.

Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of neurons to forge new connections, to blaze new paths through the cortex, even to assume new roles. In shorthand, neuroplasticity means rewiring of the brain.

Conscious thoughts and volitions can, and do, play a powerful casual role in the world, including influencing the activity of the brain. Willed mental activity can clearly and systematically alter brain function. The exertion of willful effort generates physical force that has the power to change how the brain works and even its physical structure. The result is directed neuroplasticity.

People rise or fall, limp or leap, cower or conquer, dependent on the degree of their mind management.  The moment you start thinking differently, the world changes.  A new mental process precipitates a new physical and behavioral outcome.  The effects are often amazingly rapid.  People can make dramatic, stunning changes in short order by simply altering their thoughts.

The truly exciting part of their transformations lies in the astounding discoveries they make regarding their abilities and capacities.  They realize that the potential has been there all along, and so have the opportunities, but their own thoughts have been holding them back.  When they see that it has been only their thoughts which have been holding them back, panoramas of potential open up to them.  Suddenly they see—and seize—the opportunities which have been staring them in the face all along.

We think, and with those thoughts, we create. We create the world we live in. It goes beyond influencing, shaping or guiding. You and I, in very literal terms, determine what we experience and what we enact into the world. We establish our own happiness or misery, abundance or scarcity, bondage or freedom. We harvest in life, only and exactly, what we sow in our minds.

At this very instant, you are abiding the consequences of your own mental choices. You have been where your thoughts have led you, you now stand where your thoughts have brought you, and you will go as high and as far as your thoughts will take you.

All that you do and all that you will ever accomplish is a product of your mind. Once you see—really see—that thought is the sole cause of all your effects, and discover that you have total control over that exclusive causative force, you gain access to the grand key—the source and the solution to the full gamut of human potential.

“The consummate truth of life is that

we alter our destiny by altering our thoughts.

The mind is our most crucial resource, our crowning asset,

our ultimate arena of battle.

If we will master the power of our minds,

we may do or be whatsoever we will.”

When we fully comprehend how precisely everything from our character to our circumstances, corresponds to the thoughts and images we create in our minds, it stands among the most significant and empowering revelations a person can receive.

By mastering the principles of Mind Management, you attain a level of control over yourself and the world outside that at times will astound you.  As you grow in your appreciation for the power you gain by controlling your thoughts, you will wield that power more skillfully and judiciously than ever before. Greater success and deeper satisfaction will be yours as a result.

I graduated high school in 1990 and went to undergraduate school at UNC Chapel Hill.  My parents were unable to pay for my college, however, I worked a 40 hour work week, running my own business, and graduated in 4 years.  I excelled on campus, both socially and academically.   Upon graduating college, with a double major in Political Science and History, I found work with the local police department.  I attended the police academy and graduated first in my class.  I worked patrol for less than a year before being promoted to the Vice/Narcotics squad.  I excelled at this, receiving numerous accommodations.

However, it wasn’t enough.  So 7 years later, I left the police department to start my own construction and real estate firm.  I grew it from a single basement office into a booming business.  I was building 20-30 homes at a time and had a staff of more than 10.  I was the talk of the town.

Then, it all started to crumble.   As quick as I attained it, I seemed to lose it all.  The houses stopped moving, the bills kept coming and before I knew it, I was $680,000 in debt.  People turned on me, including my family.

I lost it all; my savings, my house, and then my marriage.  However, I kept my dignity.  I set up a payment plan with my trades and got it all paid back.  It took me 2 years, but I liquidated and worked it out.  But in the end, I had lost everything.  I lost the $300k house, the nice cars, and my wife of 14 years.

I moved into a rental house that my boss owned.  I struggled each week to put gas in my car and feed my kids.  I remember one day paying for gas in change, $.93 cents, just enough to get me home.  I kept majority custody of my kids.  They kept me going.

Then, it seemed I got the break I needed.  A job offer…one that seemed too good to be true;  a sales representative with an unbelievable company.  A job I loved, all the while helping others.  In January, 2009 I was flown to Tucson, Arizona for the Varsity Gold annual sales meeting.  I was recognized for signing up more programs than anyone in the history of the company.  However, the best thing to come from this trip to the desert was the four hour Quma session with Dennis Deaton.  At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect until he first spoke.  His passion spewed throughout our small group.  And I quickly knew that Dennis had figured it out.  I wasn’t quite sure what “it” was.  When the session was over, I shook his hand and thanked him.  I also picked up a copy of The Ownership Spirit.  I started to read it on the flight back to North Carolina.  I understood it completely; however, it just didn’t set in with me initially.

Two weeks after being back, that dream job was shattered by the news that the owners of the company had foolishly made some poor financial decisions and Varsity Gold was headed into bankruptcy.  I remember that Monday night as I sat in my empty house.  My kids were gone.  I sat on my bed after hanging up from that dreaded conference call.  I began to sob.  What now?!?

Then, I turned and saw the book on my bedside table where it had sat since I returned from Arizona.  I picked it up and started to reread it.  Then, suddenly I got it.  It all was clear.  That bankruptcy court, nor my failed marriage, nor my failed business, or anything controlled my destiny.  I DID!!!

“The consummate truth of life is that we alter our destiny by altering our thoughts. “

Starting on that Monday night in the wee hours of the morning, my destiny was altered.  Something I had failed to do during those tough times.  I stood on my bed and start shouting, “IT STOPS TONIGHT!!!  TONIGHT, I TAKE BACK CONTROL!!!  Then, I shouted louder, NO!!!!! NOT ANYMORE!!!!  All the while, sobbing and crying.

I had figured it out, thanks to Dennis Deaton.  I always possessed it.  I did when I was first in my class, or heading a booming business, or being a wonderful father.  I just lost sight out when the times weren’t so great.

But never again; so that Monday night, in the early morning hours, I made the decision to no longer be the victim.  Today, I own and operate my own fundraising business.  I am replenishing my bank accounts, and the level of content within me is back.  I am successful once again and that confidence level is through the roof.

Thank you, Dennis.  Thanks for that One Grand Key that I had all along but lost sight of.

 When we sense or perceive a lack of control, we tend to slow down.

 Weird, I know, but I just kept pursuing that line of thinking, and applied it to the workplace. What ultimately influences whether a person speeds up or slows down on the job?  I think it has to do with a sense of control stemming from conditions that are not as objective as a slippery highway.

 In fact, the conditions are quite subjective and open for interpretation. In victim thinking, much of the “my input doesn’t count” and “there’s nothing I can do” mentality is often  more perception than reality. People unduly limit their influence and stew in the consequences without even realizing it.

Far from “there is nothing I/we can do,” there is virtually no end to what committed minds can do when they see how many options they truly have and how many creative solutions can be generated out of a “we can and we will” mentality.  

 The Key to transforming victim thinking into owner thinking—as individuals and as teams—is to teach people where their Locus of Control actually lies and lead them to an appreciation of the spectacular personal benefits that come from exerting control where control will succeed.

Nevertheless, the fact remains: Employee engagement is an individual responsibility. In the end, it is the inside story that tells the tale. You can provide me the most optimized environment, yet, if I choose not to be engaged, your efforts are in vain.

To paraphrase President Lincoln’s well known quip about happiness, “Most employees are about as engaged as they make up their minds to be.”

The Key to unlock and unleash employee engagement is to educate the mind that is making the ultimate decision—the mind making the choice to engage or not to engage. When those minds see the why, the whats and hows fall into place.

Minds change from within or they change not at all.