1. This Week's Jump-Start
This week I simply have some questions for you to ponder as you go about your daily activities:

• If it weren’t for time, money or circumstances, how would you choose to spend your life?
• What do you enjoy doing most that you’re not doing now?
• What special talents, skills and knowledge do you have that you’re not fully employing?
• What is your core passion that has little to do with your financial pension?

These are always good questions to ask yourself on occasion, because they help you set the course and direction for your life. —Denis Waitley



2. The Champion Within Article
As We Sow, So Shall We Harvest by Denis Waitley
Our true rewards in life will depend on the quality and amount of contribution we make. From the Scriptures, to science, to psychology, to business, the documentation is the same. “As we sow, we reap.” Life is an unfailing boomerang. What we throw out will come back full circle.

The way we can build self-reliance is to recognize the number of alternative choices we have in a free society. And for every choice we make, there is a consequence or reward of that decision that we must acknowledge as our responsibility. God’s Law of Cause and Effect is forever the ruler.

During debriefing interviews, returning POWs from the wars in which we have fought during the past century said that what they missed most of all was their freedom of choice. There are two primary choices in our lives: to accept conditions as they exist or to accept the responsibility for changing them.

To attain emotional security, each of us must learn to develop two critical capabilities: the ability to live with uncertainty, and the ability to delay immediate gratification in favor of long-range goals. Losers let life happen to them. Winners make it happen for themselves and others. Losers engage in pleasurable activities, with no purpose or result in mind. Losers try to escape from their fears and drudgery with activities that are tension-relieving. Winners are motivated by their desires toward activities that are goal-achieving.

A number of research studies during the past decade indicate that the happiest, most well-adjusted individuals are those who believe they have a strong measure of control over their lives. They choose more appropriate responses to what occurs and they stand up to inevitable changes and daily setbacks with less apprehension. They learn from their past mistakes, rather than reinforce or repeat them. They spend time taking action in the present, rather than fearing what might happen in the future.

To be self-reliant adults, we need to set some guidelines:

Be different, if it means higher personal and professional standards.

Be different, if it means being more gracious and considerate to others.

Be different, if it means being cleaner, neater and better groomed than the group.

Be different, if it means putting more time and effort into all you do.

And be different, if it means taking the calculated risk. The greatest risk in life is to wait for and depend upon others for your own security. The greatest security is to plan and act, and take the risk that will ultimately ensure your personal freedom and independence.

3. Seeds of Greatness
Problems Are a Normal Part of Change by Denis Waitley
Things are changing so abruptly that there are going to be problems you face. So you must look at failure as an event, not as a person. I’m not a failure. Maybe I’ve had a failure or a temporary inconvenience. I’ve had a stumbling block, and the idea is to turn a stumbling block into a steppingstone, and step on it instead of stumble over it. So look at failure as the fertilizer of success.


4. The Winner's Edge Coaching Tips
Humility Is Tremendous by Charlie "Tremendous" Jones
I know no man who feels fully qualified to speak as an expert on “leadership.” In fact, it seems that those who appear to be the most qualified are often the most reluctant. Knowing that I am a student of the word, rather than an authority, I think my attitude toward what I’m about to say can best be described in the story of a young minister preparing to give his first sermon. As he read and observed, he could see so clearly everyone’s mistakes, and how simple it would be to set everyone straight. He couldn’t wait for the big day when he would be able to lower the boom on the congregation. Finally, the big day came, and he rose for the great occasion. After a few minutes, he realized he was in trouble and began to sense that maybe he wasn’t the hope of the world. After a few more minutes, he began to wish he’d never heard of preaching, and that there was a trap door behind the pulpit that would allow him to press a button and quickly slip out of sight. Of course, there wasn’t and finally, after five minutes, which seemed to be hours, he said a hasty benediction. With his head hung, he left the pulpit, discouraged, broken and beaten. As he walked to the rear, an old, white haired war-horse slipped his arm over the boy’s shoulder and said, “Son, IF YOU’D HAVE GONE UP LIKE YOU CAME DOWN, YOU COULD HAVE COME DOWN LIKE YOU WENT UP.” Humility is the quality that will enable you and others to enjoy your success