Spark The Imagination

It’s casual dress Friday for me. That means I wear a tee shirt with my jeans instead of a polo. Today I’m sporting a new tee shirt that I bought last night.  On the front it reads, “It’s all fun and games until the flying monkeys attack.”

Probably everybody out there has some of those flying monkeys that swoop in to destroy your house and then fly off with some prize. Some people call them mother-in-law or father-in-law. Some call them mother or father, brother or sister. Others call them son or daughter. Usually they are related to you in some way. You know who your’s are.

So, what do you do when the monkeys fly in?

“Dorothy, run for cover.”

Unfortunately, it’s usually not an option to hide in your closet until they’re gone. (who made up these rules anyway?)

The best thing to do is just be solid and calm. Flying monkeys can smell fear 200 miles away. When there are more than one they get pack mentality and attack in groups. So, stay away from family reunions when possible. If you go, realize the monkeys will attack the weak and stand your ground.

Last tip: always have a bucket of water close at hand.

Good luck with your flying monkeys.

“Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.”  Theodore Roosevelt

You may have heard,  “you can’t win if you don’t play.” That is what Theodore Roosevelt was saying above, but, with a little more flare. In order to win you have to be willing to loose. In order to succeed you have to be willing to fail.

If you haven’t failed yet, you are not living to your fullest potential. Almost all great discoveries came from failure of one form or another. Edison had thousands of attempts to produce a light bulb before he succeeded.

There is no shame in failing. Just think of each failure as a step toward your ultimate success. The average person will quit after one failed attempt. Some don’t even make the attempt.

Don’t be average!

People laughed at Ford, they laughed at Colonel Sanders. The McDonald brothers thought Ray Kroc was a nut. The common person will laugh at someone else’s failures and ideas.

Don’t be common!

Look at failures as your badge of courage. The more failures you have the more badges you have.

Fail, fail again, fail better, then succeed.

From time to time you might feel your not getting anything done. It can be a frustrating feeling that can keep you from taking action.

One thing you can do to keep you going is to keep track of everything you accomplish throughout the day. It feels great to look at a list of accomplishments at the end of the day. Don’t just write down what you consider “big” accomplishments.

If you keep a journal of your accomplishments it will be a foundation you can use to show yourself that you are someone who can complete things. You can use it to move yourself to action.

I love music with a great beat, but, it’s even better if it also has some wisdom in the lyrics. A song that comes to mind is “Already Gone” by the Eagles.  The verse I really like is as follows:

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.

What ever chains are currently holding you down were forged by you, and locked by you, but you have the key to get out of them. The key to unlock the chains is a decision. A true deep down decision can sometime be hard to commit to, but, it is in your power to do so.

You are the ruler of your live.

You are the CEO of your life.

You are the only one who has the power to unlock your chains, but, you do have it. Reach inside and you will find it.

Know without a shadow of a doubt that you are “already gone.”

When you’re thinking up the perfect name for your business or your product make sure you think big picture. The big picture is that someday you might have a world wide name brand on your hands. When that day comes, make sure that people in other countries don’t laugh at you.

One day while I was walking in Sam’s Club with my wife, I turned to her and said, “I think I’ll go get a bimbo.” She gave me that wifely look and raised an eyebrow. I pointed to a setup where they were displaying little snack cakes with the name across in big letters “Bimbo.” I said, “It looks like I can have my bimbo and eat it too.” Another look…..

A company I used to work for had an international software product. Client/Server was the big buzz word and one of the products was a middleware product. Middleware is what is between the client and the server that allows them to talk.

If you look at Client/Server, what is between the Client and the Server? A slash ‘/’. So our marketing department came up with the tag line, “Our software, the slash in client server.” Did the marketing team ask the area VP’s about the tag line before they printed all of the collateral? Of course not, that would have made sense.

After the marketing material was printed and sent to multiple clients, we found out that slash is an English slang term that basically equates to the American slang piss. So we were telling our UK clients that our software was the piss in Client/Server.

Some of our clients told us that there was finally truth in our advertising. 

There is also the example of the car the Nova in Spain. In Spain, Nova means “No go.” Would you buy a car that doesn’t go? Of course not and sales in Spain for the Nova didn’t go either.

Bottom line; make sure the name you pick is going to translate well.

When my youngest daughter was 18 months old she told us, “I want to wear big girl underwear.” We had already gone through a grueling potty training experience with our oldest daughter, so, we didn’t really think she was up for it. We told her that she had to always use the potty if she wanted big girl underwear.

She was determined, so, we went to the store and got her big girl underwear. To our total shock and amazement she used the potty from that day forward.

Now if an 18 month old can have that kind of determination, I think you should be able to have it too. She was little and young, but, she knew what she wanted and made up her mind that she would accomplish it.

What is it you want to be determined about? What goal have you not committed to that would change your life? Take out a piece of paper and write it down. Put it in a comment to this post. Read it out loud every morning when you get up and every night before you go to bed. Write it as if it has already happened.  “I am a millionaire!”

Finally, take action. Make it happen. Just do it!

When I was young, around 4-5 years old, I use to sing in my church. I would go up to the front of the church and sing and I would sing in my class. I really enjoyed it.

One Sunday I was singing in my class and there were two boys who didn’t normally come to our church sitting in the back of the class. While I was singing I could see them talking and start laughing. I could tell they were laughing at me. It hurt. It hurt enough that I stopped singing. I stopped doing something that I really enjoyed because someone laughed at me.

Fast forward about 12 years…

One of the boys who had laughed at me started coming to my church again. We started hanging out and became best friends. We did everything together. We went looking for girls together. We got a job at the same heat treating plant working nights and we got in trouble together.

One night I decided to tell him about the time he and his cousin laughed at me. I went though the whole story. His cousin didn’t come to visit very often so he remembered the day in question.

He then said something that changed the way I look at things. He said, “We weren’t laughing at you. My cousin had told me a joke and we were laughing at the joke.”

So, for all those years I had not done something that I enjoyed because I incorrectly perceived an event. I stopped singing because I didn’t want to get laughed at again, when I had never been laughed at in the first place.

So, don’t let a laugh or a mean look keep you from doing something you enjoy. The laugh may not have been directed at you. The mean look could be because that person just found out some bad news. Don’t think things into existence that don’t really exist.

Don’t let a laugh rule your life.

It’s hard if not impossible to get motivated to take action if you are not in a good mood. So, if you’re in a bad mood but really need to get motivated what do you do?

This is where mood movers come in. A mood mover is anything that can change your mood in a short period of time. Music works great for me.

If I need a pick me up, I put my MP3 CD in my radio and crank it up. The song that does the trick varies, but, with the MP3 CD I have over a hundred to choose from. Sometimes it’s the Monkeys, sometimes it’s Twisted Sister. “I wanna rock!”

Another mood mover is thinking about the result of the work that needs to get done. I picture the house I’ll move into or the car I’ll drive. Sometimes I might even drive into the neighborhood where I will live once the work is done.

One last mood mover I’ll offer is what I like to call a “wealth walk.” Sometime it is good to get outside and walk down the street. Movement seems to lead to other action, so, if you get out and walk when you come back you will be more likely to feel like taking action.

I call them “wealth walks” because I think about wealth while I’m walking. Simple, I know, but it has a nice ring to it.

So, go for a “wealth walk” and thing about all the possibilities. Then come home and take the action that will result in your dreams.

My 7 year old daughter, Payton, loves to imagine great worlds around her. She likes to make up stories and secret clubs. She reminds me of the girl in “Bridge to Terabithia.”

One activity that she and I both enjoy is making up a story together. It was her idea and so I went along. She would start telling a story and she would find something in her room to incorporate into the story. She might pick a stuffed animal, or a game, or a music box.

After she starts the story, it is my turn to add to the story. I pick something else in the room and use that to develop the story.  We go back and forth until the story is done. Which is usually when I say we have been creating long enough. I’m not sure she would stop if it were up to her.

Her method of looking around the room to find the “next piece of the story” can be used to solve problems or break writers block. If you have a problem that you need a solution to just look around the room and pick something.

Don’t put a lot of thought into the picking. It could be the first thing you see. Make that object the solution and try to come up with ways it could solve the problem.

In the end the item you picked will more than likely not be the final solution to the problem, but, it will hopefully spark some other ideas.

The same thing can be used to break writers block. Pick something and start writing about it. After you have picked up some momentum you can which back to what you need to write about.

Why settle for a storm when you can have your own category 5 brain hurricane. In order to have a brain hurricane you have to follow a few rules.

Rule 1: You can have a brain storm by yourself, but, in order to have a hurricane you need a small group.  Five people is optimal.  Fewer people can result in lulls in the action and more people can result in people not participating. 

Rule 2: The group must contain people with different skills and strengths. Try to have at least one person who is logically minded and one who is artistic. You should have at least two men and two women.

Rule 3: No notes should be taken. If someone is trying to write they will not be contributing. Also, if people see someone trying to keep everything on paper they will slow down to let the person write. Record the session.

Rule 4: Don’t debate, contradict or analyze. The goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible. People should be always adding never taking away.

Rule 5: Set the mood. It has been shown that people who have been laughing will be more likely to come up with new ideas. Show a few cartoons to get people laughing.

Rule 6: No negative statements allowed. Keep everything positive.

Rule 7: Let everyone know the rules.

Now that you have the rules get prepared to blow your doors off.