Posted 4/26/2003 by Josh Hinds

I've put together a section where I list the Focus On Success interviews I've done over the years. In each one you'll find real life changing ideas from leaders in the areas of business, personal development, and motivation. Click here to check them out... Josh :-)

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'Do You Know Where You're Going To?'
by Gary Vurnum

Yes. I know that it's a line from an old Diana Ross song (sad aren't I? lol) But... all joking aside... this is a SERIOUS question!

Well... do you? Ask yourself.

Can you (hand on heart) say 'Yes!'

It's a difficult one, isn't it?

I'm not talking about answers like

- I want to be a millionaire.
- I want to be a top manager.
- I want to have a successful relationship.
- I want a pay rise.

Nope.

I'm talking about SPECIFICS!

Unless you know EXACTLY what you want... then you will never get there.

It's like saying that going on vacation... you may know what country you are going to... you may even know the resort... but, if you don't know what the name of your hotel is... you're STUCK.

You can go all that way... and still not get there.

Do you get what I mean... in my own roundabout way?

So... start thinking about being more PRECISE about what you want out of your life.

OK...

You might be one of the few people who actually DO know where they're going... but I have another question to ask you if that is the case...

'Are you doing something every day that is taking you towards where you want to go?'

This could be the one thing that is holding you back.

Your success is determined by your habits.

Read that again... it's VERY important.

You become your habits.

- If you smoke you become a smoker.
- If you drink you become a drinker.
- If you only watch TV all the time you'll be a TV bore.

But... if you do something constructive, positive, and
tangible towards your future you will be... SUCCESSFUL!

It's not rocket-science.

I bet that you've met a few idiots who have become successful, haven't you? lol

Just 5 minutes a day means an extra 30 HOURS a year (an ENTIRE working week!) that you would have spent doing something for YOU!

Isn't that worth the sacrifice?
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Written by Gary Vurnum - "How Can Gary Help You?". I'm a father, husband, author, coach, and marketer in that order. I've written an ebook called "The Science of Success" that will change your life (if you let it). Find out about it here.

Posted 4/24/2003 by Josh Hinds

Identifying Ideal Customers
By Jim Cathcart

I think everybody needs to know "who is the best customer for me?" Here's how you can generate a description of that individual.

List five of your best current customers. After you have them listed, describe as many characteristics of each one as you can.

How do they do business; how do they think; where did they go to school; what information sources do they turn to; what level of financial success are they experiencing; how many different locations are they operating from?

Also note what resource they came from. Were they a referral? Did they come from a response to advertising or direct mail, or what?

Similarly, do a detailed description of the characteristics of your five worst customers. By worst I mean the ones that are hardest to work with, the ones who are the toughest ones to please, the ones that are generating the least profitability for you in comparison to the amount of time an energy you put into dealing with them .

When you finish doing that exercise, compare your five best customers to your five worst customers and look for the characteristics that distinguish them. Then ask yourself what prospecting methods could I employ to find more of these best customers and to avoid running across more of these worst customers?

So identify an ideal customer for you. Don't focus on the negatives, focus on the positives. What does a good customer look like? What do they sound like? Where do they go? What do they do? How much money do they have? How easy are they to access?
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Jim Cathcart, Member: Speakers Roundtable - The Speakers Roundtable is a consortium of 22 of America's foremost professional speakers, sales trainers and seminar leaders. All members are dedicated to serving their training, motivation and consulting clients with pertinence, excellence and extraordinary value. Visit http://www.speakersroundtable.com to learn more of email office@SpeakersRoundtable.com

** Browse Jim Cathcart's products here.

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Finding The Opportunity Within The Problem
By Zig Ziglar

You can find at least two ways to look at virtually everything. A pessimist looks for difficulty in the opportunity, whereas an optimist looks for opportunity in the difficulty.

A poet of long ago put the difference between optimism and pessimism this way: "Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars."

Unfortunately, many people look only at the problem and not at the opportunity that lies within the problem. Many employees complain about the difficulty of their jobs, for example, not realizing that if the job were simple the employer would hire someone with less ability at a lower wage.

A small coin can hide even the sun if you hold the coin close enough to your eye. So when you get too close to your problems to think objectively about them, try to keep in mind how your vision can be obstructed, take a step back, and look at the situation from a new angle. Look up instead of down.

Pessimism muddies the water of opportunity. Think about this example: Anytime an innovation comes along promising to make life easier and people more productive, someone always complains that it will put people out of work.

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, protesters said that it would put thousands of people out of work. Instead, the invention made the production of cloth much cheaper, and millions of people could afford more clothing, which created countless jobs.

... You can't do anything to change the fact that a problem exists, but you can do a great deal to find the opportunity within that problem.

You're guaranteed a better tomorrow by doing your best today and developing a plan of action for the tomorrows that lie ahead. Just remember to maintain a positive mental attitude so that, as you plan for tomorrow, you're doing so with the sense of expectancy that produces substantially better results.

... Adapted from Zig's book "Success For Dummies". Look for a copyhere - or at your favorite off-line bookstore.
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Zig Ziglar offers a weekly newsletter filled with more of his inspiring stories as well as practical ideas to help you in the areas of sales, marketing, customer service, and related topics. You can subscribe to his newsletter by going to http://www.zigziglar.com.

Posted 4/20/2003 by Josh Hinds

A Special Kind Of Courage
by Brian Tracy

There are several different aspects of courage. Perhaps the most important is the courage to endure, to persist, to "hang in there" in the face of doubt, uncertainty and criticism from others.

Practice Patience In Adversity - This is called "courageous patience," the willingness and the ability to "stay the course" in the face of uncertainty, doubt and often criticism from many quarters.

Stay The Course - In my experience, there is a critical time period between the launching of a new venture and the results that come from that venture.

During this hiatus, this waiting period, many people lose their nerve. They cannot stand the suspense of not knowing, of possible failure. They break and run in battle, they quake and quit in business.

The True Leader - But the true leader is the person who can stand firm, who refuses to consider the possibility of failure. The turning points of many key moments in human history have been the resolution, or lack thereof, of one person. Courageous patience is the acid test of leadership.

To encourage others, to instill confidence in them, to help them to perform at their best requires first of all that you lead by example.

Allow Honest Mistakes - The second thing you can do to help alleviate the fears of failure and rejection in others is to encourage them to take calculated risks and allow honest mistakes.

Build People Up - Give the people who look up to you regular praise and approval. Celebrate good tries as well as success, large and small. Create a psychological climate where people feel safe from censure, blame or criticism of any kind. Then do things that make people feel terrific about themselves.

Become Unstoppable - Courage comes from acting courageously on a day-to-day basis. Your personal development goal should be to practice the behaviors of a totally fearless person until you become, in your own mind, unstoppable.

Action Exercises

Here are two ways for you to develop courageous patience.

First, prepare yourself in advance for the inevitable disappointments and setbacks you will experience on the way to your goal. Don't be surprised when they occur.

Second, resolve in advance that you will bounce rather than break and continually encourage others to think and act the same way.
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Brian Tracy is one of the world's leading authorities on personal and business success. His fast-moving talks and seminars are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that you can apply immediately to get better results in every area. Visit Brian's web site and take advantage of his free audio program offer - 21 Success Secrets Of Self Made Millionaires, or 21 Great Ways To Manage Your Time And Double Your Productivity. Click here!

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Tools of Your Craft
by Julie Jordan Scott

The shiny black exterior seemed to wink at me as the fabric cut its path through the tirelessly humming needle and thread. What would it look like when it was finished?

My dreams were huge: Would the dress she was making purrrrrr like the machine?

As a little girl, my mother used her Pfaff sewing machine tirelessly as she created this dress for me and that dress for my sister. She feverishly sewed prom dresses and wedding gowns and baby clothes and you name it, she sewed it.

All on the trusty Pfaff my Dad bought her as a newlywed.

Their fiftieth anniversary is coming this year and she still sews on that same machine. She has a fancier backup and it is the black, old fangled work horse that she loves that still gets more use.

It is a much loved tool of her craft.

As the stars twinkled all around a mountain top near Yosemite, I sighed contentedly.

The setting was a work weekend at my favorite retreat center one spring. Usually there are at least 100 people at Calvin Crest. This weekend there were three families. Feeling like a member of a pioneer expedition, I was the only woman and children outnumbered adults, 4 to 1.

My friend, Steve, is a painting contractor. I had never seen him at work before, though I had seen him driving his brightly painted vans around town occasionally.

As he donned his painting garb and took his equipment in hand, his eyes gleamed. Somehow in my paint spattered denim shorts with a brush in hand, I did not have the same music in my painting as Steve.

Painting the trim on the cabins at the retreat center was not my chosen profession. I did not even really enjoy the painting itself although the company and setting were both heavenly.

I did notice the way Steve honored his special equipment. These were the tools for HIS craft.

My craft is different than my mother’s or Steve’s. All three of us experience deep satisfaction and heart felt joy as we create. We all experience fulfillment as we complete our projects. And we all wish others could learn to relate to our craft in the same way we do.

What is your craft?

Is it related to your job or your family?

Has it changed over time?

Passion Activator:

Take a moment to free write about the Tools of Your Craft. The poem below was birthed during my Morning Pages time one day as I was thinking about how I produce these essays each day for you to read and hopefully glean ideas to improve your life.

Here is more about my tools in poem form:

Pen Paper Heart Brain Time Movement Space The Tools of My Craft Move Me from where I was To where I am To where I dream of going I love the tools of my craft

What are the tools of your craft?

To see the submissions of several of our readers, visit here, now.

Has this inspired you to write? to paint? to express more about the Tools of Your Craft?

(c) 2002
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Julie Jordan Scott is a Certified Life Purpose Coach who works with action oriented, creative people who are ready to live each moment with passion. Dare to discover your passion, decide to live YOUR destiny by subscribing to Julie's ezine by sending an email now to DiscoverYourPassion-subscribe@egroups.com or visit her website at http://www.5passions.com

Posted 4/14/2003 by Josh Hinds

The Ultimate Reason To Become A Millionaire
By Mike Litman

Why should you strive for financial success?

For the money you will receive? For the attention you might garner? What is your reason?

I would like to suggest another reason for you to consider.

Recently, I was sitting down with multi-millionaire Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins' original mentor, and he told me what he feels is the best reason to become a millionaire.

He said.

"Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it."

He went on to tell me about his own mentor.

"My own mentor, Mr. Schoaff, had an interesting way of teaching it. When I was 25 years old he said, 'I suggest, Jim, that you set a goal to become a millionaire.' I was all intrigued by that. You know, it's got a nice ring to it - millionaire.

Then Mr. Shoaff said, 'Here's why.'

"I thought to myself, 'gosh, he doesn't need to teach me why. Wouldn't it be great to have a million dollars?'

Then Shoaff said, "No. Then you'll never acquire it. Instead, set a goal to become millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it."

"Do it for the skills you have to learn and the person you have to become. Do it for what you'll end up knowing about the marketplace. What you'll learn about the management of time and working with people.

Do it for the ability of discovering how to keep your ego in check. For what you have to learn about being benevolent. Being kind as well as being strong. What you have to learn about society and business and government and taxes and becoming an accomplished person to reach the status of millionaire."

"All that you have learned and all that you've become to reach the status of millionaire is what's valuable. Not the million dollars."

Jim Rohn told me a lot of amazing things in our time together. But, after all of the millionaires I've had the pleasure of interviewing, this lesson really stands out as advice we should all follow.

You need to ask yourself:

What kind of communication skills do I need to develop in order to become a millionaire?

Then begin working on them.

Ask yourself:

How must I think in order to become a millionaire?

Then begin thinking that way.

Ask yourself:

What kind of people do I need to associate with so I can achieve my goals faster?

Then strive to become a person those people will want to be around.

None of us can afford to underestimate the value and importance of this reason to become a millionaire.

In other words, the greatest value you will receive by becoming a millionaire is the person you have to become to make it in the first place. That is the greatest reward of your journey to success.

In fact, Jim Rohn wasn't the only millionaire who helped me to realize the power of this lesson. A couple of years ago, Chicken Soup for the Soul co-author, Jack Canfield gave me the same lesson when I sat down with him.

Jack said, "It doesn't make a lot of difference to become a millionaire. I've done that many times over and I can tell you that it's nice to have a house and a car that doesn't fall apart and all that."

"But, what's more important is who did I have to become in order to become a millionaire?"

"I had to learn how to overcome my fears. I had to learn how to talk in front of groups. I had to learn how to plan a speech. I had to learn how to ask people I was initially afraid of to loan me money, etc."

"All of that was scary. But, when I did it and survived it, I was no longer afraid to do it in the future. Now you can take away my house, my money, my car and everything, and it wouldn't matter. I know how to create more of those things because of who I've become NOT what I possess."

What these millionaires taught me is priceless.

The point is you must go after your goals and dreams with a burning desire because you will begin to see a transformation in yourself. A greater self-confidence and belief in yourself will be the first of many rewards.

Jack Canfield went on to say, "You want to set goals that are high enough that in the process of achieving those goals, you become someone worth being."

Now THAT is what I call the ultimate reason to become a millionaire!
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Mike Litman is the host of the personal development radio show, The Mike Litman Show. Mike interviews the top entrepreneurs and motivators alive today. Learn the secrets from the experts Mike has interviewed in his new book "Conversations With Millionaires"... Get full details here.

Posted 4/07/2003 by Josh Hinds

Commitment Requires Personal Integrity!
by Gary Ryan Blair

Consider this question: What's the point of setting a goal if you have no intention of ever achieving it? Depending on its application or lack thereof, personal integrity is the enforcer or the terminator of success, the choice is entirely up to you!

Personal integrity is the final and most necessary ingredient of the goal setting process. It's the one that allows you to swing open the vault of success.

Your biggest concern when undertaking any new initiative is not with your skill, ability, or intelligence - IT'S WITH YOUR COMMITMENT!

There will be a sense of negligence to everything you do unless you are committed and exercise personal integrity.

The "Promised Land" is for those accountable to their actions. The most successful people in life consciously determine what they want, why they want it, and map a strategy for achievement.

They understand that personal integrity means maintaining a commitment to your commitment. It's about setting a goal and keeping your promise to achieve it - end of story!

NO EXCUSES are ever allowed, permitted, or entertained by a committed individual. Excuses, blame, and self-pity are character flaws and weaknesses that winners want no part of.

Personal integrity is what success and goal achievement is all about. The moments you feel like quitting are the times you must take a flashlight to your soul and inspect yourself for will, courage, and spirit.

Don't tarnish your goal by doing something so bush as quitting just because things got difficult. Nothing of any quality and lasting value was ever created by quitting.

It's only by persistence, faith, courage and good old-fashioned elbow grease that you truly find out what you're made of.

Lack of integrity ensures false promises and broken dreams; it negatively reinforces a sense of incompetence. Failure to honor your commitments to yourself is the biggest mistake you can make; it reflects an absolute disregard for the sanctity of your own goal.

Saturate your goal with a heavy dose of personal integrity. Without it, your goal becomes more whim than vision, more a scheme than a dream.

Lack of personal integrity is like a slow leak in a tire... eventually everything goes flat. If success is your destination, you will arrive there on a carriage called Planning pulled by a horse named Integrity.

Commitments are easier to make than to meet. But the joke is on you if you think you can achieve any goal without commitment.

You are called on to fulfill your promises. A large part of your success will come from sheer tenacity!

What's at stake at this stage is profoundly more important than the goal itself. Hanging in the balance is the essence of your life... your character and overall success.

Personal integrity builds intellectual and psychological muscle. Yet, many people have the psychological strength of a "98-pound weakling."

You make yourself vulnerable to failure every time you exercise cream puff ethics. You deprive yourself the company of success and the fruits of your efforts by quitting.

Personal integrity is the countdown clock of your goal. It starts ticking the second you begin and stops when you achieve the goal or quit.

Without personal integrity, you can say, "Farewell dream. Adios potential. Toodleloo success. Hello Mediocrity!" Your goal will find a more deserving soul... someone with courage, character, and conviction. Someone who keeps promises!

Personal integrity is not only habitual but also essential- it moves you ever closer to your goal and ultimate success.

Commitment is the heartbeat of your goal. In order to keep your goal breathing, rely on the oxygen of integrity.

Go ahead turn to personal integrity to keep your dream alive and to provide the staying power needed to cross the finish line to success.

Everything Counts!
Gary Ryan Blair
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Written by Gary Ryan Blair - The GoalsGuy is your online goal setting and personal leadership coach. Check-out My Personal Strategic Plan and learn how to achieve more in the next year than most people do in a lifetime. See why best selling author Brian Tracy said, "This is the most remarkable, simple, and practical guide for ANYONE who wants to create the ideal life!"

Posted 4/03/2003 by Josh Hinds

Removing Negative Thoughts
by Randy Gage

The question people often ask me is when their self-development work and personal growth finally "takes," is when will they stop having negative thoughts. I wish I knew. Although I'm afraid the answer could be never.

I play CDs with positive subliminal messages while I sleep each night. I start each day by reading something positive, and end each night the same way. I have many positive, success-oriented people in my life. I feast regularly on positive books, tapes and other programs. And let me tell you what happened yesterday...

I have an embarrassing confession to make.

I was practicing the vacuum law of prosperity in my closet again. I decided that since I have so many nice, stylish and beautiful clothes - I was going to stop wearing blue jeans so often. The last time I did this, I gave away over 40 pairs of jeans. I still have about 15 left.

About five of them are black Armani, Boss or other designer jeans that I could wear with a sport coat or similar situation. That left me still with ten pairs of blue jeans. I made a spur of the moment decision to give away nine of them. I figured that way I couldn't be lazy and just reach in the closet and grab a pair every day. So I stacked the nine pairs up on my donation pile. And then it came . . .

The thought.

For a fleeting moment I thought about what would happen if I lost everything and had to start over again. And I thought about the possibility that I might have to take a blue collar or manual labor job where I would want to have those blue jeans again.

And that blows my mind.

For the sake of this neurotic fantasy, let's suppose I lost everything tomorrow. Everything.

I could start a restaurant chain (Which I already have the concept for) and would likely become a billionaire. I need just snap my fingers and I could have ten or twenty investors.

I could start up my speaking business and make millions of dollars from scratch.

I could announce that I was available for copywriting projects and pull in a million dollars a year.

I could jump back into network marketing and be worth a couple million in a few years.

I could announce my availability as a marketing consultant and have more business than I could possibly handle.

If I mentioned to my Mastermind Council that I was looking for a job, I would have two or three high five figure offers in five minutes.

Truth is, it wouldn't matter what business I do, I would be successful in it. I could make a fabulous living anywhere I go.

But I still had that thought...

Fleeting, though it was. And I have been working on my prosperity consciousness for 13 years! I've made millions of dollars, I have the ability to make billions more. I judiciously guard against negative programming to the point that I will leave a movie halfway through, or end a conversation in a mid sentence. And I still had that thought.

And know what?

I've had lots of other ones. Sometimes ten a day. As rich, successful, healthy and happy as I've become, I have often still had fear-based thoughts. Looking back now, I see a lot of things I did, thinking they were prosperous, but I see now they were fear-based.

When I bought a bike, I bought a titanium professional race bike for $3,000. I remember thinking then that if things got bad, I could always sell it for some quick cash.

Well I bought three Vipers at the same time, I felt secure, knowing I could always sell one or two and scrape together a hundred grand.

Coming from the place I did, I always felt like I was somehow cheating destiny. That God, or the universe, or someone was going to wake up one day and discover that I had acquired wealth by mistake.

And given my mother's proclivity for worst case, nuclear meltdown scenarios, I still had that niggling thought in the back of my mind-the defensive, better-prepare-for-the-really-bad-scenario, and have my options covered-just in case. And not get my hopes up too high-because then I was setting myself up for a great disappointment.

And like I told you, I've had those kinds of thoughts recently, as many as ten a day. But here's the difference...

I notice every one of them now. Immediately. And I often laugh about how silly they are. Best of all, I see the progression of my mindset.

First, I had hundreds of negative thoughts a day, and noticed none of them.

Then I graduated to the point that I had lots of negative thoughts a day and noticed some of them.

From there I got to the point that I had less negative thoughts a day and I noticed a lot of them.

And gradually over time, I started having less and less of them. Some days I have none. And now when I do have them, I catch myself right away.

I used to wear a rubber band on my wrist, and snap it when I had a lack thought. Now I no longer need to do that. I just tap my fingers on my forehead. That's the signal to my mind, and I instantly reject that thought, and replace it with another one. And once that happens. The world changes.

So when do the negative thoughts end? I doubt they ever do. The sheer enormity of how much negative and lack programming you will be assaulted with over the course of a lifetime makes that seem unlikely. (But let's not affirm that.)

In any event, if you keep counter-programming-you will win the fight. Because once you control the programming-you control the mindset. And once you control the mindset-you control your destiny!

Start a life journal and track your negative lack and limitation thoughts and tally them. At the end of each day, spend some time thinking about this subject.

If I were to spend the day with you-how many times would I say, "Let's not affirm that?" How many times did you think about attempting something and consider not doing it because you thought you would fail? How many times did you just simply assume bad or less-than-great things were going to happen to you?

When you really analyze the day and think about this regularly-you will start to notice these thoughts. And once you do that, they lose most of their power.

And your mindset starts to change . . .

You change your core fundamental beliefs. You believe you are supposed to be healthy, happy and prosperous. You believe you are worthy. And when you are confronted with dozens of situations each day, most minor, some bigger, and even some that are major-you expect good things to happen to you!

You expect to find that tie you need to complete the perfect outfit, you expect to win in a sporting event, you figure you are next in line for that promotion, or you expect your business ventures to be successful.

And because you expect good things to happen to you-you approach life differently. You approach it expecting to end up on top. And because you believe it-that's exactly what happens! Ain't it great?
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Article Submitted by Randy Gage - For more than 15 years, Randy Gage has been helping people transform self-limiting beliefs into self-fulfilling breakthroughs to achieve their dreams. Randy Gage is a modern day explorer in the field of body-mind development and personal growth. He is the author of the best-selling albums, Dynamic Development and Prosperity and director of BreakthroughU. For more resources and to subscribe to Randy's ezine newsletters visit his web site.

Posted 4/01/2003 by Josh Hinds

How I learned Pride
By Larry Pollock

When I was a young boy, working the summers with my father in his plumbing business, I had the opportunity to be exposed to a man who taught me more about pride than any one I have ever met. His name was Will, and he was a ditch-digger.

Every morning my dad and I would pick up Will in the company van, and take him to a job site where a ditch was needed for a plumbing installation. Slowly, Will would climb down out of the truck and shuffle along with his bad limp, the result of having to walk with only half of his right foot.

He had cut off the front of the foot in a sawmill accident when he was a young man. Will stuffed rags into the toe of his shoe to fill the empty space in the front where his foot was missing.

He would lace up his shoes, gather up his shovel, ax, pick and the roll of string he kept wrapped around a piece of wood. My father would show Will where the ditch needed to run from the house out to the street, and with quiet deliberation, he would carefully hammer a stake into the ground at the house where the ditch was to begin, and another out at the street where the ditch was to end.

He would then tie the string to the stake at the street, and pull it back to the stake at the house. Will stretched the string until it was tight as a banjo string, creating a perfectly straight line.

With his square-end shovel, he would then follow that string, cutting perfect three-inch thick blocks of sod from the yard, placing the blocks of sod on the left side of the ditch exactly next to the spot where they were removed.

When all the sod was neatly positioned along the ditch, he would begin to dig into the dirt in the hole, piling it along the right side. The sides of the ditch were perfectly straight and square. The bottom of the ditch was perfectly flat with just the right amount of grade from the house to the street.

When my father and I arrived to install the pipe, there was no need to put a level on each piece of pipe to make sure the grade was correct, because Will had dug the ditch so well that all we had to do was lay the pipe and make the connections. This done, Will would slowly and methodically pick up a shovel of dirt and drop it into the ditch.

He didn't just scatter the dirt, but picked up a full shovel at a time and dropped it in such a way that it hit the bottom of the ditch with a resounding "thunk", packing the dirt as he went. He knew that doing so would prevent the dirt from later settling and creating a low spot in the customers yard.

When all the dirt was in and tightly packed, he would have left exactly three inches of space for the three-inch thick blocks of sod he had previously placed to the left of the ditch.

Will would pick up each square of sod with his shovel and drop it back into the same spot from which he had cut it. When all the sod was in place and packed down, and there was not a single seam that was visible, he would take a water hose and wash the remaining dirt into the sod.

When he had finished, it was impossible to tell that a ditch had ever been dug through that beautiful lawn.

For many summers I watched Will repeat this ritual over again and again. Through the sweltering heat of July and August, he would stop only to periodically wipe sweat from his brow or get a cool drink from the water keg.

I watched him perform that task in the dead of winter, his hands numb and stiff from the freezing cold. Through it all Will just kept systematically plugging along, all the while coupling the work with a smile and enthusiasm. And above all, great pride in what he was doing.

Will performed his job so well that many times, late in the afternoon, as the customer would arrive home and Will was picking up his tools they would ask, "Why wasn't my sewer line installed today as promised?"

Will would flash his big toothless grin, smile with pride, and inform the customer that it was already finished. Our customers would look at their yard in disbelief, unable to see any evidence of a ditch ever having been dug. Their lawn looked the same as it had when they left that morning for work.

It was from Will the ditch digger that I learned about pride, enthusiasm and good attitude in my work.

Imagine if we all took the same pride in our work that equaled the pride Will exhibited in digging his ditch. And imagine that by doing so you could make such an impression on someone that they will recount the story to others fifty years later.

What a legacy!!

Michelangelo, the famous artist, was quoted as saying, "when the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art."

Will knew that.

He dug his ditches with sheer artistry. The same artistry and level of commitment that Michelangelo exhibited as he created the famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Will knew that what lies behind you and what lies before you, pale in comparison to what lies within you. And even
though he was only a ditch-digger, he knew that with the pride within him, he could be the best ditch digger in the world.

Will became my mentor in learning to instill pride in all of my work. He was a ditch digger with half of a foot and little education, but he had an abundance of pride.

He was the best that he could be.
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Written by Larry Pollock - motivational speaker, "The Baldheaded Survivor". Larry's message empowers organizations to operate at peak levels. To learn more about him visit http://www.baldheadedsurvivor.com now.