Bloom because you can...

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.

Proverbs 24:10

This poppy 'resides' in our front yard.  And not because we planted it there, or because we have encouraged it to stay.  In fact, very little actually grows in our yard, including grass!  Our yard seems to be a death sentence to all things green, except dandelions and this poppy (and a rhubarb plant that I planted to prove that things just don't grow in our yard...and it too pops up every year).  I don't know a whole lot about plants or gardening, nor can I explain why this particular plant only blossoms once a year while looking like an unwanted weed the rest of the year.  In the winter, the plant appears to die off completely, and on several occasions I have made considerable effort to completely remove the plant, roots and all.  Yet every year, it pops back up and produces these beautiful blossoms.  

I have decided that this plant lives on because it wants to live.  It knows what it is capable of accomplishing, and will not settle for less.  Regardless of the unfavorable conditions, adversity, and the cruel 'gardener' who keeps cutting it down, this plant continues to not only survive, but thrive and produce beauty.

There is a great lesson for all of us in this poppy's success.  Adversity IS NOT a reason to fail.  Adversity instead makes our success all the more incredible.  No matter what the world hands you; no matter what others say, think, imply, or expect of you; No matter what you have or have not accomplished in the past, BLOOM because you can!  There is a truth that is both essential to our eternal progressions and undeniable: You are a child of God, and as His child you not only can, but should Bloom!

'How can I do that' you ask? 

Try the following, then let me know about your incredible success!  Your success story will be a great strength and beacon of HOPE to others (including myself!).

The 'I am' List

Prepare an 'I am...' list.  The purpose of this list is to remind yourself of who you really are AND who you really can be.  Society and outside pressures often tell us who we are, and when you hear something enough you begin to believe it.  The 'I am' list is a great tool to 're-write' who you are from the inside out!  I have used this in the past, and I still use this today.  I have known many great leaders and mentors who use this type of technique to make those changes in their lives that most would consider impossible.  I will give some examples of what you can put on this list, then explain how to put this list to use.  Think in terms of personal, family, spiritual, and business/career.  What are your strengths, and how can they be improved upon?  What are your 'future' strengths (what pessimists might call weaknesses)?  

• I am... a loving husband and father.  I lead my family in kindness, gentleness, and patience.  I am a Man of God, and as such I work everyday to learn His will for me, and make changes in myself to become who he wants me to be.  
• I am... an inspired leader, who leads with a positive attitude and by example.  I maintain my hope and vision by reading GREAT books and associating with positive people who lift me up and inspire me to be GREAT!  And I do my part to inspire and lift up others EVERY DAY.
• I am... HIGHLY self-motivated to succeed in all worthy endeavors (spiritual, financial, family, personal, etc..).  I know I can accomplish great things, and I know I have friends, family, and most importantly God on my side.

There are so many things you can put on this list, it could be PAGES long, but I suggest you keep it to a few short sentences.  Put those things that are most important to you, and that you most want to be/become.  This list both can, and SHOULD, change every few weeks or months as needed to reflect the 'new' you and the new challenges in your life.  You can write this on a small card, or into your planner, or put it right into your smart-phone/i-pad.  Here is the 'how' of the list: Read this list to yourself every morning when you first get up and going, and every night before you lay down.  You may even want to record yourself reading that list and listen to it several times a day (wear headphones if you don't want to attract too much attention, but realize that people will notice the changes you are making in your life!)  And visualize yourself BEING those traits on your list, because that is WHO YOU ARE!  Carry this list with you and read it several times throughout the day, and I promise: You will start to become who you tell yourself you are, instead of who 'the world' tries to convince you that you are.  And you are AWESOME!

WARNING! HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS!

It is nearly impossible to see such excitement and enthusiasm and not start to feel the same way!  This is our 2nd child (she is now 10, so this was a few years ago), and still she can let her energy flow out and lead others along.  I guarantee that you know people like this.  Wherever they go, people begin to act and feel like they do!  That can be either a great experience or a brick wall, depending on how they feel at any given moment.  I get to travel a bit, and meet new people almost every day.  I met a lady yesterday who was everything that the above picture is NOT! There was no enthusiasm, no positive attitude, no HOPE, no silver lining.  In fact, I can best describe her attitude as a Black Hole of Despair!  I gave a bit of counsel, shared some hope and humor got some smiles on her face, and then....CRASH!  She fired up the black hole again and all was lost! (and she did so ACTING and TALKING as if she was continuing the positive conversation I had begun, OUCH!)
 
When was the last time you smiled BECAUSE you wanted to be happy, instead of waiting to smile UNTIL you were happy?  When was the last time you shared your excitement and enthusiasm with others BECAUSE you wanted to be motivated, instead of waiting to be hit in the head by the club of motivation? By the way, the only real and lasting motivation is SELF-Motivation, and self-motivation comes from....wait for it...wait for it....YOURSELF!  Smile to BE happy!  Laugh to BE joyful!  Pray to BE spiritual!  Start doing and being what you want to do and be, and don't wait for the in-existent fairy of good fortune to visit you in the land of make believe and magically turn you into the YOU you want to be.

Psalms 32:11

 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

Liberty (and the crashing kite)

I spent a few weeks just outside of Washington DC last year on a work assignment, and decided to spend a day seeing the sights of our Nation's capital before heading back home to Montana.  On the side of the Robert Taft Memorial Bell Tower, was the above inscription (Liberty has been the key to our progress in the past and is the key to our progress in the future.  If we can preserve liberty in all its essentials there is no limit to the future of the American People).  Compared to the Washington and Lincoln memorials, the Robert Taft memorial is a bit obscure and off the beaten path (it's tucked in the trees between the capitol building and Union Station), and you don't hear an awful lot about Senator Robert Taft, but I found this statement to be rather profound and insightful.
Liberty, which can also be referred to as freedom (of choice, of religion, of government), has so many levels and meanings.  How well I remember being 18 years old, and wanting freedom to mean I could do whatever I wanted and be happy as a result.  Yet, the more I did what I thought I wanted, the less 'free' and happy I felt.  In a struggle to be 'free' from God, commandments, rules, guidelines, and restrictions, I had really missed the bus completely.  I was like a kite wanting to be free from the string, altogether unable to understand that it was the string that was allowing me to fly!  And like a kite cut free from the string, I was doomed to fall to the ground.
So what is Liberty?  How can we be truly free?
When God created this earth (what, you mean it wasn't a big bang and evolution?), and put plant and animal life upon it, He did so with a plan.  And a central part of that plan was Free Agency (the ability and responsibility to choose) for His children.
So like Peter Parker (spiderman), we have a great power bestowed upon us and a great responsibility.  The power to choose for ourselves what we will do every day, how we will act, how we will treat others, and whether we will strive to change for the better.  But it gets a bit tricky (of course, can't be too simple or it might not be fun!).  Since we 'choose' what we will do, we also accept the consequences of those choices (whether good or bad).  And our Nation was set up after a similar manner.  The laws governing our Nation, our States, and our local communities give us choices.  The law says, don't steal, don't kill, don't make fun of President Obama (some of these are easier to follow than others...) and if you CHOOSE to obey the laws, chances are you will not see a negative consequence.  However, if you decide that freedom to choose (liberty) gives you the right to take the life of another (or his car, wallet, etc..) then you also choose to loose other freedoms/liberties.  Like freedom to go to work in the morning.  Or freedom to travel, collect guns, be a professional snowboarder, or any number of other things that you cannot do from behind bars.
Now that example was a bit more extreme than most of us will likely encounter personally (but if you have been there, you know how real that loss can be).  Even the 'little' choices we make can have a huge impact on our future!  Choose to use vulgar, offensive language and soon you have a hard time thinking happy and positive things! And just try sincerely communicating with God when your mind is filled with vulgarity, it's worse that trying to make a phone call after dropping your cell phone into a port-a-potty that should have been emptied weeks earlier!  Choose to 'steal' time from your employer, or complain constantly about how much you hate your job, and you will likely find that either you don't have a job to complain about (or steal time or anything else) from or you wonder why your peers are getting promotions, raises and bonuses and you are not!  The choices we make, make us who we are!
Now the BEST part is, WE CAN CHANGE!  We can change who we are by beginning to make better choices.  We perform regular self-inspections, and pick out those areas that we need to change or improve, and begin to make different choices to become who we truly want to be.  We can become who God wants us to be.  And luckily, we are never too young or too old to make wonderful changes in our lives!

A little Liberty Math for you:  Liberty + Bad choices = less liberty!   Liberty + Good Choices = More Liberty!

 '...if we can preserve liberty in all its essentials there is no limit to the future...'

Failure IS Success!

Failure is Success.  And sometimes success is failure.  Let me explain what I mean.
Often in life you will experience what many consider to be failure.  You don't accomplish what you set out to accomplish.  You start a business and it doesn't take off the way you hoped it would.  You start a new job and realize that you have no idea what you are doing.  You take a class and fail miserably.  The list can go on and on, but to avoid sending you into a spiral of doom remembering all of your failed attempts in life, I will purposely leave my list short.
For me, as long as I grow, learn, and change for the better, failure is success.  I succeed in finding a better way to do something, I succeed in avoiding stupid mistakes in the future, I succeed in knowing how not to do something the next time.  The only time a failure is a failure is when I give up and give in.  I am not a failure, and neither are you, we simply gained invaluable life experience and knowledge, and will use that to forever better our lives.
And looked at from that perspective, without the emotion and drama, Failure really does become Success.
What is Success?
According to Wikipedia:

Success may refer to:

• a level of social status
• achievement of an objective (goal)
• the opposite of failure   

Instead of the opposite of failure, I declare it to be a positive result of failure.  I maintain as an ongoing goal that I will learn from my mistakes.  Pause what I am doing, review the outcome of my decisions, determine what worked and what didn't, and course correct for the next round.  And so, even in 'failure', I succeed.

Let me give you a couple of 'Clayisms' regarding success and failure:

1.  Success and Failure are Choices we make. (I will write more on this in a future post)

2.  Both success and Failure should be motivation to succeed (or continue to succeed).

What!?!  When I fail to accomplish a goal, I get competitive with myself!  I have a very competitive nature when it comes to many things, and I don't like to lose.  In fact, I don't know many people who do like to lose.  One of my daughters cannot go on with life when she gets beat on a video game by her siblings, while another tries harder and channels that loss to fuel her competitive nature so she can win the next game.  When channeled properly, I believe that being competitive is a great attitude to have.   I used to love playing basketball.  I used to love to go up against the best players in the league!  And when they would out maneuver me, I would use that as fuel to push harder, try harder, and in all cases, win!  I actually believe that they were likely better players than I was, but my competitive determination to win ruled the day!  The same concept applies, or can be applied, to any and every situation.  Don't let so called 'failure' stop you in your tracks.  Throw that failure into the competitive furnace, and let it fuel your success!  

What would have happened to the Israelites if Moses had given up after any one of the 'failed' attempts to convince Pharaoh to let them go?  God sent us here to learn, and 'failures' are a great learning experience and an even better springboard to much greater future success!

Focus on the target!

There is an amazing 'phenomenon' that is both predictable and reliable.  When you focus on something, and it can be absolutely anything, you suddenly get more of it!  You can focus on a character trait that you want to gain or strengthen in your life and you begin to find opportunities to practice that trait.  The world seems to provide instruction from every unlikely source to inspire you and carry you toward your desired target.  Friends and strangers suddenly have such inspiring advice, tips and encouragement to offer just at the right time.  And if you focus long enough with unwavering determination, you HIT the target!
Now, there are two sides to every coin, and that which is true in the positive sense of focus, is also true of the negative focus.  Focus on the problems you have, your shortcomings, weaknesses, inabilities and so forth, and they too get stronger.  You will be 'encouraged' negatively to continue strengthening those very traits that you so detest and abhor!  And just why is that?  What you focus on is what you get.  The target you aim at, is the only target that you can hit.

'Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.' 
Thomas Jefferson

Several weeks now into my motivated and inspired journey, I got a call last night from a church leader asking if I could teach a lesson today to the men's group.  He apologized for the late notice, and I gladly accepted the opportunity!  (I am focusing on helping both myself and others learn. grow, be inspired and motivated and here is an opportunity beating down my door!).  We have a great group here at church, and I was super excited to inspire them to learn and inspire them to action!  And the subject of the lesson was: 'We are all enlisted' referring to the Army of God and our commitment to carry the work and word of Christianity forward.  What a great and exciting chance to motivate, and what a worthy cause!  

I shared with the group my own love of the gospel, and how much I am blessed continually by taking part in it.  I shared my vibrant enthusiasm for the work, and you should have seen the excitement spread!  Now, let me point out: this is not a high energy loud evangelical church (and I am NOT putting down such churches).  We have a very calm and loving spirit in our church with very inspiring discussions and well prepared and completely uniform doctrines being taught.  I believe, as many Christians do, that God is organized and wants us to be the same.  That there should be order, uniformity, and consistency in His church.  And so in this setting, we got excited!  Faces lit up, experiences and testimonies were shared, and we all became edified and inspired in our callings to serve!  And after church I overheard several of the men passing that same enthusiasm on to others! 

Focus on those things that are good, praiseworthy, and positive, and THAT is what you become, THAT is what comes to you!  And do your best to avoid strengthening those things that you would rather not be associated with.    So, what is it that you want more of?

Inspired!

A few months back (maybe a little more than just a few...) my wife and I started looking over our finances with a level of intensity that we had never before considered.  Up to that point, my philosophy on finances was, if things were tight, I just needed to work harder and make more and ignore the fact that we had no plan, budget or goals.  Of course, my incredible wife had tried without success on numerous occasions to talk some sense into me and convince me of my greatly lacking abilities with regards to financial matters (I made and make way more than your average high school graduate, to the point of making quite a number of college grads quite jealous and resentful, but that's another story..).  And I, for my part, ignored her, and worked harder to hide my 'stupid'.  And it seemed to work...sometimes.  We would get way ahead with all the credit cards paid off, the cars paid off, great equity in the house, and everything would seem awesome in our world.  Then I would come up with some new wacko business venture/idea and say to myself 'It always works out, let's jump in over our heads again'.  And out come the credit cards, and some car/truck/vehicle suddenly seems like something I can't live without, and line of credit loan seems to be the ONLY solution to getting things rolling, and and and and and.... Back in the hole we go.  My 'work harder' mentality takes over, and things eventually start to be less painful, credit card balances usually go down (sometimes not as fast as I pretend they do), and we almost get back to square 1 before my next 'Big Idea' surfaces to set us back on the roller coaster.

I would call it the circle of life, but it's definitely not a life I would choose when I look back and perform an autopsy on the outcome/results of the cyclical mess.  And where do we go from here?  I (we) were utterly sick of making quite decent money, and having little more than debts to show for it.  So I finally allowed my wife to begin to talk some sense into me (did I mention that she is amazing, smart, incredible, and extremely patient with me? I definitely married up!).  She pulls out a Dave Ramsey book (The Total Money Makeover) and suddenly my (our) financial world changes overnight.  Everything I have always 'known' about money, finances, debt, interest, etc.. is laid out in such a straight forward, no-nonsense, motivational, and inspirational way that I cannot look at debt without hatred and utter animosity ever again!  And that is just the tip of the iceberg!  As we gained (and continue to gain) a grasp on budgeting and debt annihilation, everything in my life is gaining such great clarity and momentum.  Business, family, church, you name it, I am gaining such focus and intensity that I feel like I could fly!  You know those great dreams you had when you were a kid, the ones where you could fly?  And as you grew older, it became more and more difficult to fly or control flight, until finally you were 'grounded'!  I realized a couple weeks ago that I was flying in my dreams again!  Not all dreams, and not every night, but the Hope and Joy filling me again are having a profound impact on my life, and I have great visions and aspirations again!  Life is no longer just about working harder to hide my stupid financial shortcomings.  I feel a passion and excitement that have been waning and/or gone for years!  And it just keeps getting better!  So starts a fabulous and eternal journey, come FLY with me!