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Letter From The Editor

When we were babies we cried to communicate our unhappiness and smiled when we were content. As we grew we learned how to talk… to say “please”… to say “no”, leaving me to wonder when we learned how to put assumptions in the middle of our communications! From thinking someone is thinking or feeling something they aren’t to actually believing someone said or did something they didn’t do, assumptions are at the heart of more misunderstandings and upsets than probably anything else on this planet.

So would you like to reduce the turmoil caused by miscues and hurt feelings? Give up assuming anybody or anything!

Stop assuming:

• What you do and do not know
• What those around you are or aren’t going to say
• What others may or may not believe
• What others are or aren’t going to do

Instead, be the question. Communicate fully and completely everywhere, and when you don’t “know” say so! Otherwise you risk being assumed too!

The assumptions that we human beings make about one another have created some unnecessary and very hurtful circumstances throughout our history. Now just imagine what we could avoid in the future, both in our worlds and the world as a whole, if we would stop assuming we know the answers to everything before we even ask the questions. It is this easy: stop assuming, be the question, and communicate fully and completely everywhere and all of the time!

Best Regards,

Clay S. Nelson

Would You Like to Have Clay Speak at Your Next Event?

Clay Nelson has over two decades of experience coaching construction business leaders in creating life balance, building teams, and writing business and marketing plans. We have a number of programs that can be customized for your specific event. Visit our Speaking section for more information, or contact us with your questions and comments:

Beth Geier, Managing Director
Email:
Phone: 309.698.7966

Your Choice—Complain or Create…Choose!

Right now, this fall, “'tis the season” for elections…and in a few short months the presidential elections will be here. It’s hard to find a person in these days of economic challenges and increasing world strife who doesn’t have an opinion about our leaders and the job they are doing. Mostly what you hear are complaints…complaints about the leadership, our political system, how campaigns are run, and the results our leaders produce. Many people feel helpless, and so they complain that there is nothing they can do to make a difference, instead of taking action and creating the room for a difference to be made.

Truth is, we all make choices every day and each choice, big or small, sets in motion a set of circumstances and shifts the path of our life. One of the biggest impacts you can have on what shows up in your life is around your choice to either complain about something in your life or to create something that serves you.

You are where you are because of your choices! Oh, that’s not what we want to hear! We like to complain about circumstances in our life—not having the relationships, job, or house we want—completely ignoring our responsibility for the role we have played in creating unwanted or burdensome circumstances. It’s really a pretty self-centered way to be. Think about what the late tennis great Arthur Ashe once said, “If I were to say, ‘God, why me?’ about the bad things, then I should have said, ’God, why me?’ about the good things that happened in my life.”

You actually create how your world occurs through what you say and think! You create the person you are through your choices. If you constantly complain, either to yourself or to others, your life will occur for you just like what you speak—it will look like one giant complaint! And no one wants to hear you complain! Trust me on this!

Life is all about who you choose to be in each moment. You can CHOOSE to COMPLAIN… or you can CHOOSE to CREATE! Take something from our current circumstances and learn from it. Then make a difference for yourself, your family, your friends, and even the stranger standing next to you at the gas pump.

Instead of standing in line at the complaint counter of life, imagine what it might be like to live every day fully understanding that you have a say not only in how the day turns out, but in how your life turns out? Which do you choose? Complain or Create?

The Time to Plan is Now

Failing to plan is planning to fail. —Anonymous

I talk a lot about having a plan. Why do I do this? Why is it that every time someone tells me they want something or encounter a challenge, I ask, “Where’s your plan?” It isn’t just to bug people—really, it isn’t. It’s because having a plan WORKS. We all will be much more successful in what we do if we have a roadmap of sorts that tells us how we are going to get to where we want to go, and NOW is the time to get your plan for 4th quarter of 2008 finalized and your plan for 2009 underway!

Plan… plan… plan. Let’s look at reminders of how important it is to have a plan—reminders that are contained in the word P-L-A-N itself.

P is for PAPER.

You must write your plan down on PAPER. That is the first step in turning dreams into reality. Involve your team. Team members’ ideas will be helpful and creative, and when you involve the team, the team has ownership and interest in the plan. Start by writing down everything you “know” about where you are going and where you want to be. What you write down at first doesn’t have to have a logical order. Just get it down on paper. When everything you “know” is on paper, what you don’t know about your plan will show up! Then you can plan for how to deal with what you don’t know. Where is marketing missing? Where is team missing? Where are you operating on hope instead of being a visionary?

L is for do something you LOVE.

If your heart isn’t into what you are doing, why are you doing it? If you’re having trouble writing your plan because you don’t really want what you say you want, you need to get straight with yourself. Writing a plan about what you really want is FUN! Have fun with the plan you are writing. It should reflect your passion and purpose. Our creative juices are at their greatest when we are having fun. So let loose, have fun and step away from the norm. Allow yourself to consider where your "out of the box" thoughts could take your business or family…it just might be outrageous enough to work!

A is for ACCOUNTABILITY.

Your plan should have specific action steps, so the team members who will be implementing the plan will know what to do and by-when they need to do it. For any plan to be outrageously successful, it must be fully communicated to every person. Write down the actions necessary to get where you want to be, and then, after asking permission, of course, hold the team accountable for doing what they say they are going to do, by-when they say they are going to do it.

N is for NOW!

Get going! Do something now to make your plan happen! It doesn’t have to be a big step… just even a small step will get your plan started. Saying you want success is not enough. Focus, write the plan, and then live it. You have to really want what you want, write it down, and be willing to hold others accountable and be held accountable yourself for getting it all! An outrageous and profitable 2009 and 4th quarter 2008 are within your reach. So get moving!

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