The Re-launch of the Little Engine Blog

I've been away for a little while. The last entry I made was on April 21st, about three months ago. In that time, I had some serious thinking time, as well as plenty of time with my beautiful wife and four wonderful boys.

I made a decision that has been a very long time in the making. I believe it may have been longer in the coming then even I can determine. The whole story of how I came to this decision is one that I may tell in a later post.

The decision I made, is to set a goal to begin a career as a motivational speaker. It's a lofty goal, but one I think is going to be fun to chase.

I have a problem right from the start and it occurred right here on this blog. I started it and then got board and stopped. I got board because I lacked focus. The blog was disjointed and I didn't really know what I was going to write from entry to entry. This is not the way to run a Motivational speaking business.

However, I have another problem as well. I am lacking in the basic knowledge it takes to run a motivational speaking business. But, what to learn? Napoleon Hill taught us that we don't need to know all the books in the library, we just need to know where the library is. This concept makes me feel better about the magnitude of material I need to go through. But still what do I need to read in order to have the knowledge and wisdom it takes to be a great motivational speaker?

I was disappointed to find that I misplaced a book by James C. Humes called "The Witt and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln". In that book was a wonderful quote. Someone asked Lincoln what the source of all his wisdom was. His paraphrased reply was, he mastered (Not read or studied, but mastered) three works. First was the bible, "which holds all the secrets of the universe"; the second was the complete works of William Shakespeare, "who had an uncanny understanding of the human psyche" and the last was the complete collection of William Blackstone's commentaries, which Lincoln said, at his time, "no young lawyer should be without".

The point is, in order to succeed, all that is required is to master a small part of what you want to do and then turn to the library, or your mastermind for the rest of your required knowledge. (I will get into what a mastermind is in a future post. Hint: Chapter X).

So, what should I master. Abraham Lincoln did most of the work for me. I need to master the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. I am not a lawyer, so I don't need to master Blackstone. But what should I have in place of Blackstone.

When you stop and think about it, the answer is very simple. The largest selling self help book in history is the Bible, but the second largest is "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. This is the second larges selling because Hill's ideas work. These are the works I have to master. But, it doesn't stop there. In order to completely understand the thought processes of Napoleon Hill it would be a good Idea to study the works of two other people (Yes, I said study). Those people are Charles F. Haanel who Hill attributed a large amount of his success, and W. Clement Stone who was an associate of Hill's.

Even though Abraham Lincoln believed he needed to master three works, I have a very hard time justifying not adding a fourth work to be mastered. That is Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". This is a work which is in the library of many high powered corporate executives. My opinion is, if Bill Gates has it in his library why shouldn't Joe Bagadonuts, owner of Bagadonuts Tavern in Center Silly Philly.

Now let's go back to the focus problem I had. I need to master these works and I have to be focused with the blog. So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I got an idea from a friendly group who meet on a website called www.talkshoe.com. They call themselves the Focus Society of Overachievers. When they started late last year, they reviewed chapter by chapter, "Think and Grow Rich". At present, they are reviewing Haanel's seven book series "The Master Key".

My idea is to do the same thing right here on this blog. I'll start with "Think and Grow Rich" and review a chapter at a time. My vision is many people will read the posts and tell me if I'm spot on or if I need to adjust my thinking. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing lots of opinions and maybe even some debate.

Now, am I saying that my learning will stop with these books? Far from it. I have a lot to learn about business and in particular about the speaking business. I am in the middle of developing a mastermind of people who can point me in the right direction. Because of the mastermind and because I know where the library is, I don't need to master these things.

Where this road is going to take me, I haven't got a clue. And yes, I am a little frightened, but I am more excited about the rewards of finally doing something I've been thinking about for years.

A Bitter-sweet End

Today was the day for the Division International Speech Contest. I gave a good speech. I was proud of it. I really felt I did everything right. I sat down and felt satisfied, except for one thing...

As I watched the rest of the three contestants give their speeches, one by one, I couldn't help but compare them with my own perceived performance. These guys where all polished Toastmasters veterans, so I really had my work cut out for me. I thought I really hung tough with those guys and was proud of myself, except for one thing...

As we went to the break, people - almost everyone in the auditorium - stopped me to tell me how impressed they where with my speech and how powerful it was. Like anyone would, I drank it all in. I was absolutely beaming with pride. "Nothing can keep me from winning this whole thing, except for one thing..."

We finished our intermission and the meeting resumed with the evaluation contest. The model speaker was excellent. He was a "Big Brother" with Big Brothers and Big Sisters for eight years and was telling us about his special relationship with his "Little Brother".

The four evaluators came in one by one and gave great evaluations of the speech. Evaluations where never my strong suit, so I paid particularly close attention to this portion and got a few good ideas.

Then it was time to reveal the winners. The evaluation contest was announced first, and my friend, Lilly, won second place. Then it was my turn to find out how I did. I stood a pretty good chance, except for one thing...

The announcements where made and I was not the second place winner. The first place winner was announced and that was not me either. The reason as it turned out was not one thing. It was two things!

Toward the end of the speech, I noticed that the green light turned to yellow at a point where I was supposed to be farther into the speech then I was. I tried to pick up the tempo a little to remedy the situation. Then the light turned to Red and I still wasn't finished.

30 seconds left. I finished the speech as quickly as I could, but there was a lot to say for 30 seconds.

Two seconds. Two seconds separated me from a possible trophy today. I was Two seconds over the seven and one half minutes allowed to us.

Would I have won first place? I don't know. And quite frankly, I'm not really sure I want to know.

Now it's time to share with you the best part of the day. During the break something happened that I didn't tell you about. I was asked by a fellow Toastmaster to deliver a speech in front of his company.

Yes, it's true, I didn't win today, but I did walk out with something else that could be more valuable then a trophy. I walked out with an opportunity. How big is this opportunity? I don't know. I guess that is up to me to decide.

The Lessons of Rutgers Women’s Basketball

The Don Imus comments on his show where … unfortunate to say the least. The statement was one of hate from a very hateful man. I believe Glenn Beck put it best when he said, “Don Imus hates everybody, but he hates himself the most”. But the statement was not what concerned me the most. In fact it was really nothing about Imus that concerned me most. What bothered me about this whole situation was the way the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team reacted to it.

I’ve faced a lot of hostel verbal bashing in my life and the one thing that I’ve learned is that the only way that someone can really offend you is if you give them the power to do so. And that is exactly what the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team has done.

They have allowed someone who has already been established to be a very hateful man, with many serious issued, to offend them. Rutgers Forward, Heather Zurich said during yesterday’s press conference, “Our moment here was taken away, our moment to celebrate our success”. The fact is this moment of success was not taken away by Don Imus, it was allowed to slip away by Heather Zurich, Coach C. Vivian Stringer and the rest of the Rutgers Basketball team. They’ve allowed themselves to be offended and they are the ones who are allowing the anger to burn inside their hearts.

Coach Stringer said, “Who amongst you could have heard these comments and not be upset?” Well, since she asked, I may as well answer. I wouldn’t have been upset. Why? Well, first of all I’ve been called a lot worse then a “nappy-headed ho”. Second, consider the source. The fact is the Rutgers Basketball team shouldn’t be offended; they should be looking upon Don Imus with pity.

He is just a sad man, who is not happy with the way his life has turned out and his comment is only a symptom of that.

The Rutgers Women worked hard to get to where they are and they have every right to pat them selves on the back. It just bothers me that they would leave one stupid comment destroy all of their hard work and accomplishments.

I would hope that we could all learn a lesson from this situation. The lesson is when someone offends us, we need to first consider the source. If the source is anybody like Don Imus, we need not give that person the power to destroy our lives. If we do, we are not only dragging ourselves down, we are also giving the offender validation.

Unfortunately, I believe that most people who have become familiar with this story over the past few days will not learn this lesson, because most of the media is busy talking about how bad a person Don Imus is. Ultimately this is going to give Imus all the free publicity he has ever wanted and, at least for a short time, he will be more popular then he has been in years. And as long as the Rutgers team chooses to let their anger simmer, they will not have a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Exercise

I am 5 feet 11 inches tall and weigh 218 pounds. Ya, I'm just a bit over weight. About 40 pounds over weight to be exact. I've been pondering loosing the extra flab for a few years, but I am finally doing something about it this year.

Over the years I've been collecting a lot of useless facts about dieting and loosing weight and storing them away in the file cabinet in my head.

Facts such as:
1. If you are hungry while you are dieting, that is really bad. It's best to eat every two hours so your body gets used to the idea that there is plenty of food, so your metabolism will rise and your body will burn more fat. But if you allow yourself to go hungry, your body begins to believe there is a shortage of food and your metabolism will slow to save your fat stores for when there is nothing left to eat.

2. A diet is absolutely useless unless you exercise. It doesn't really matter what kind of exercise you do, just as long as you will either raise your heart rate above 120 beats per minute for a half hour a day or build muscle, or both if you wish. But the most important part of the exercise you chose is that you enjoy it.

3. Three pounds of new muscle burns as many calories as running 1 mile
per day.

4. Water is an extremely important part of any diet. It helps to clean out all the waist and toxins.

5. Although walking helps, it should never be used as your only form of exercise unless you're race walking.

I called these useless facts because what ever knowledge you have in your head is totally useless unless you put them into action. And I haven't been putting this knowledge into action until January 2nd of this year. Why? Because I discovered that in order to tackle the really big fat challenges in life, you have to contend with your subconscious mind first.

You need to be able to get your subconscious ready for the fight, but that is not all that is required. You also need to reaffirm the subconscious every day preferably twice a day. Once in the morning as soon as you get out of bed and once before you go to sleep.

The way I do it is by using a technique which is fully described in a book called "Think and Grow Rich" by a gentleman named Napoleon Hill. This book is the original self help book and despite its cheesy title, the ideas in it are not just for getting rich. They're about being successful, no matter what your definition of success is.

Anyway, I wrote out 5 statements.

1. I stated my goal. I chose a specific weight goal which I came to through a little research
2. I wrote out a statement on how I will use my success to help others. This is important because, according to the theory, you need to pay back what you "demand" from life and how you do that is by helping others along the way.
3. I then wrote a statement of the specific date when I plan to reach my goal.
4. Then I formulated a plan of exactly how I plan to go about doing what I need to do in order to reach my goal.
5. Finally, I wrote out one single statement summarizing everything I had written in steps 1 through 4.

I make a point to read these statements twice a day. Trust me, I'm no angel. I have already had failures, but a part of the struggle for success is recognizing that there will be failures and know that you just have to get back on your horse and keep trying.

So far the system is working. I started on January 2nd and am still following my workout schedule faithfully and eating as healthy as the plan I made says although I tend to struggle with my caloric intake on the weekends. Even then I have already lost 15 pounds and am doing nearly twice as many push-ups and sit-ups as was my maximum when I first started out.

It is said that when you first start a workout that you need to get in shape before you get in shape. Sound funny? It really isn't if you think about it. If you're that out of shape, which I was, you need to get your body to a point where it can carry your great big fat frame easily enough to take the grueling exercise of actually getting in good shape.

After three months of light exercise I'm finally at that point where I can begin to push myself every day.

I'll be checking in every now and again to let everyone know how things are going and maybe I'll have a new exciting goal in the future.

Lessons in Character

On June 20, 1933, Ernest took another look at his father as he left the house. Ernest's heart broke at the sight of his father standing on the porch with his shoulders slumped and his posture broken. His father promised his mother the world, but as a poor farmer, he was unable to deliver.

No matter how hard he worked, Ernest's father was never able to get his family out of squalor. His life, he felt, was a total failure.

In the past, Ernest tried to talk his father into a new business idea, but his father dismissed the idea as ridiculous, because that type of business was illegal the United States.

After Ernest left, the old farmer went into the house and picked up his pistol and walked out to the field where his wife was working and shot her in the back of the head. He then went back into the house and took his own life.

If only Ernest's father had learned the lesson that a man named R. U. Darby had learned years before, maybe he would have looked at the situation a little differently.

R. U. Darby was employed by his uncle to go to Colorado to help dig up a gold vein he had found. They got loans from family and friends to buy the equipment they needed to bring up the gold and when they got to Colorado, they got straight to work. They brought up enough gold to pay off all of their loans, but shortly after, the vein disappeared. They dug around, but where unable to find any more gold.

Discouraged, they sold all of their equipment and the land to a junk man for a few hundred dollars. The junk man hired an engineer to look at the mine and he discovered that, because of a fault line, the gold vein was broken in half and the rest of the gold would be found just three feet below where R. U. Darby and his uncle stopped digging and the junk man went on to become a millionaire many times over.

Mr. Darby now had a choice to make. He could have wallowed in his failure and suffered on his cross of discouragement, or he could have learned from his choice to give up.

How many times are we faced with this choice? Sometimes we find ourselves in a period of despair and discouragement. Maybe we have just experienced a catastrophic failure in our lives. The failure may seem to be so great that it may take the rest of our lives just to recover.

How easy is it to throw our hands up and say, "I quit"? How easy would it be to just go home and sit in front of the T.V. and make no attempt to redeem ourselves, after a hug failure?

How hard is it to pick ourselves up after a humiliating defeat? How hard is it to face the same struggles that have embarrassed and humiliated us in the past?

We all know that the former is much easier to do, but it is the latter that makes us what we are as human beings. If we decide, against the odds, that we are going to go back for more abuse and pain and humiliation, all in the name of some kind of success, it is then that we are making the greatest investment in ourselves.

Education is great. You can do a lot, if you are educated. Work experience is also wonderful. But, the best investment we can make in ourselves is an investment in character.

Character is the basic building block of success. And the only way you can develop character is through the use of courage and persistence. If you have the courage to get up off the ground, and try again, and you have the persistence to get up off the ground no matter how many times you fall, you will develop very strong character and you will ultimately succeed. And more then likely, your success will be far greater then you ever expected.

In many stories, surveys, interviews and studies of the most successful people in the world, we find that many of them have faced the most difficult and catastrophic failures just before they realized there greatest successes.

It is these failures and disappointments that develop our character and ultimately make us successful in all of our endeavors. The motivational speaker and author Napoleon Hill said it best when he wrote "Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit"

R. U. Darby learned this very well. He decided to take the road of character development. He created a slogan for himself which he repeated as often as he could. He said "I stopped three feet from gold, but I never stop because men say no". When ever things looked bleakest to him, he decided to "dig three more feet". As a result he became one of the leading insurance sails men in the country, making annual profits of well over a million dollars.

If Ernest's father had only learned this lesson and just waited five more months before falling victim to despair, he would have been able to be a part of the venture that Ernest and his brother started. They where raisin farmers, like their father. And when prohibition was repealed, only five months after their parents' death, they went to the local library and found a recipe for wine. They stopped growing grapes for raisins and began making wine. Despite having to compete with over 800 other wineries in California alone, Ernest and Julio Gallo where able to build one of the largest wine producers in the world.

Letter from an American Hero

“It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that grate characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and statesman.”

This statement was written by a little known American hero. Her name was Abigail Adams. If the name sounds familiar, it should. She was the wife of John Adams, our second president and the mother of John Quincy Adams, our sixth president. She wrote this statement in a letter to her son.

John Adams had to go to France during the Revolutionary War to work out a treaty with the French. He was to go with another great American hero, Benjamin Franklin. Because Mr. Franklin was going, Abigail and her husband realized that this was an extraordinary opportunity for their son.

John Adams and Abigail Adams both grew up in very poor farming families and nether had much of an education. When John Quincy arrived on the scene, they decided that he would be highly educated. So, they took every opportunity they could to educate their young son. And an opportunity had just arisen in the form of Benjamin Franklin.

On the voyage over to France and on the way back there would be lots of down time and while in France there would be educational opportunities as well. Abigail and John knew that if their son could spend time with Benjamin Franklin while he did his experiments during the down times as well as witness treaty negotiations, that would be a much better education then he could get in any school. So, they decided that it was important for John Quincy to go with his father.

The trip over would be very dangerous. The voyage would take place in the winter time when the seas where at there worst. On top of that, they would have to run an English blockade. Even if they where able to run the blockade, surely the English would be looking for them and trying to stop them before they got to France. John Quincy knew all of this and was not very happy about it.

John Quincy did not want to go, but they knew that this experience of dealing with these difficulties would help him to grow in ways that he could not even fathom.

So as a part of convincing John Quincy to go along with the plan his mother wrote the letter with the above statement in it.

This statement is a very powerful one, especially in this day and age. I believe it is so powerful because we lost the knowledge that true intelligence comes from solving problems and "contending with difficulties". And self-esteem can not be taught, it is earned.

Political Correctness is one of my biggest pet peeves. I believe that Political Correctness is robbing us of our freedom as well as a good education. We spend so much time worrying about our children's feelings that we are forgetting to teach them. And we are spending so much time trying to make our children's lives antiseptic of pain and disappointment that we don't realize we're also taking away a chance for them to develop real character.

Character is so very important for our children to have and if we raze an entire generation without character it makes me worry about the future of, not just our nation, but our society.

I hope we can take a lesson form the Adams' and remember where real intelligence comes from.

In future blogs I will be writing more about the poison known as Political Correctness because one can not begin to be motivated or inspired without first developing character. And one can not develop character without overcoming the pain of disappointment and failure.

Welcome to my "Little Engine Blog".

Welcome!

I named this blog after my favorite childhood story, "The Little Engine That Could", because I think my life has been a lot like that little engine's struggle. I've been struggling up hill most of my life.

First of all I was born into a poor family. I can't say that we where in poverty but we where pretty close. My parents never owned a car and they never owned their own home. I also had a learning problem that was never officially diagnosed; however, I always suspected it was a form of dyslexia.

The latter caused me most of my problems in school. I failed and repeated first and Third grades and came very close to repeating sixth grade as well. In Tenth grade, seriously considered dropping out of school. Considering most of my problems throughout school, most people probably wouldn't have blamed me for giving up, but I was not in a family like most. My family had a lot of faith in me, far more faith then I had in myself. As a result, I stayed in school and kept saying "I think I can, I think I can".

It's a good thing too, because as it turned out eleventh and twelfth grades turned out to be the easiest years in school. I was able to pick up momentum and speed before I hit the brick wall called U.S. Navy "A" School.

I graduated second ... from last in my class and went on to the fleet where I landed on a ship with a lousy workshop supervisor. I learned next to nothing under him, but I did have some time to work on my work ethic and character with different kinds of physically challenging ship board work.

When I got out of the Navy, I went back to school. I struggled my way through school. As in high school, I began to think seriously about quitting but my girlfriend, my future wife, wouldn't let me give up on myself either. Like my family, she too had far more faith in me then I had in myself. Looking back, especially to that point in my life, I realize that I owe my wife my life, because it was her belief in me that gave me one.

After I got out of school, I went to work with an engineering firm, who quickly showed me how much I have to learn about engineering. At one point I was told I had three months to catch up on what I needed to learn or I would be canned. This was easily one of the most depressing points in my life. I was being rejected from the career I had been preparing for since high school.

I really felt like all my dreams where about to end. I had already been working hard to learn the job and here I was at the edge of a cataclysmic disaster.

I spent the next three months doubling my efforts and looking for another job. But two things happened. My wife got pregnant and my boss called me into the conference room again, this time to tell me that he was pleased with my progress.

That is where I am today. I'm not working with the same firm, but I am with a firm that I like very much and earning the money I believe I deserve.

I'm here because of my wife, my family and a children's story that was read to me over and over again many years ago.


I believe I am going to have fun writing these blogs and I hope someone will read them and be inspired to keep on saying to themselves "I know I can, I know I can".