Living Large Living Deliberately

Living Large Living Deliberately Let's Start Living Those Dreams Passionately

Jim Killon

Living Large

Living Deliberately

Copyright 2016. Jim Killon All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by information retrieval systems without prior written permission from the author, except where permitted by law.

This book is dedicated to those loving individuals who have learned what it means to live large and deliberately. The beautiful folk who didn't pull the ladder up behind themselves, but dedicated their own lives to help others realize their dreams too.

Other books by Jim Killon: A Gringo in Peru-A Story of Compassion in Action The Best Damn Book About Sales That You Will Ever Read Atheists Don't Eat Their Children

Table of Contents

Preface

1.

People Change When They Have Reason To Change

2. Changing Your Environment- What You See And Hear, You Become

3. Fear

4. Food To Just Die For

5. Goals

6. Gratitude

7. Self Esteem

8. Giving Back

9. My Personal Thank You

Preface

The first thing that I want to tell you is that I am just an ordinary guy. I am probably much like you in many ways. However, we are also different because of the various experiences that we have had and what we have allowed those experiences to mean to us. How those experiences shaped our lives and thinking is why one person will see the world as a beautiful place, full of opportunity and adventure while another person will see the same world, rush home, seal up the windows and turn on the gas.

My experiences could be considered simultaneously tragic and incredibly fortunate. It was the tragedy of a collapsing economy in 2009 that caused a lifetime of careful planning to morph over a million dollars in assets into mere pocket change. It was the overheard nefarious plan of a bi-polar, alcoholic wife to have me murdered, about the same time, that caused me to flee my country and everything familiar to me. Ironically, these occurrences were two of the best things that had ever happened to me. As I later came to realize, they were the last sandbags holding me down in my hot air balloon of my dreams, visions and ambitions. People will stay in miserable circumstances just because it affords them a sense of familiarity which is mistaken for security. They simultaneously fear the unknown just beyond their view. It was a burden I no longer had to bear. I also lost another incarcerating burden which was my comfort zone. I was sure that any new obstacles in life would pale in comparison to what I had left behind.

Depending on the day, I was right.

If you had read my earlier book, "A Gringo in Peru-A Story of Compassion in Action", (if you haven't, do us both a favor and read it please) you know that I arrived in the Peruvian Andes to fulfill a long time dream of helping poor and destitute kids. This dream was ignited by a visit to Nicaragua a few

years before all hell broke loose. While visiting a condominium resort that I had invested in, I passed through several pueblos and met with families and their children. I had never seen such destitution and impoverishment so up close before and it moved me deeply. I decided that one day, somehow, I would do something about these horrific situations whether it was there or somewhere similar. We all know we should help those less fortunate in the world but in actuality how many of us actually do? For me, should became

must. With just the remains of my life savings, I created an NGO called Changes for New Hope in the Peruvian Andes. I didn't have the first clue what to do next, but if your passion is a must, you will figure it out and I did. From a small group of fifteen curious children in one crude adobe room, we have grown to be able to reach over two thousand children as of 2015. We teach everything from value based living to art projects and provide clothing, shoes, school supplies, games and toys, a safe environment for personal growth, vitamins and anti-parasite medicine to fight the effects of anemia and malnutrition.

My life has never been the same. I found love and compassion in measures that I never knew existed. My thoughts shifted from frustration and anger at the apathy of those well able to help this project to a sense of gratitude for what we were able to do, solution focus replaced problem management. I found beauty in simplicity. My life went from my previous United States consumerism mentality to living a life as a minimalist, and loving it. My wealth is now internal, where it matters the most. To be able to control my thoughts, hence my actions, as opposed to being flung around by my thinking like a ragdoll in a dog's mouth was a powerful thing. I found my awareness of the destitution expanding from just the children to the emotional destitution of those that live in the comforts of the developed world. Whether you are a child, cold and hungry in a Peruvian mountainside or a corporate slave somewhere in North America or Europe, devoured by the illusion that having more is somehow being more, I felt

compelled to serve, with all due respect and love, everyone with what I have learned and experienced. I want to share with you, how to step into the life you deserve. I acknowledge change is sometimes painful, but staying in misery, whether the misery of complacency, fears, mediocrity, living a bland life or worse, is a pain that you certainly want to find an escape hatch for as soon as possible, am I right?

In coming to Peru, I burned my ships, I gave myself no option to return to what I left behind which forced me into a "do or die" state of being. While that may be a touch much for most of you, if you make an honest decision that your life is hardly where you want it to be for optimum happiness, love, contentment and total joy and you demand change of yourself, starting

today, you will have burned your ships and realize that you can never return to mediocrity again. You are going to erase the boundary lines of your "comfort zone" which isn't all that comfortable but simply a familiarity. I can promise you right now that if you read this book all the way through, apply the ideas and suggestions in here, you will come away much closer to the person that you have always wanted to become and more. Naturally, no one source of information, whether it is this book or any other book, video or seminar, is going to be the 'end all, be all' for the answers you seek.

Growing, learning and development is a lifelong pursuit toward greatness and completion. From my heart to yours, let's begin this journey together.

People Change When They Have Reason To Change

"Until you are fed up with the set up you will never get up", was a quote I read somewhere that stuck with me. Simple but true. If you are earning just enough at your job to make it too much trouble to look elsewhere, you will endure a mediocre job situation until they show you the door. Many people drag along in an unfulfilling relationship without passion or excitement because it is perceived that it is better than being alone. People live a dull, uninspiring life day after day because they never imagined a life filled with passion and new unfolding developments. A life driven by compelling purpose would be great but that would require turning off the television, wouldn't it? I don't say this to mock anyone, but I know it is how most people live their lives. People that arrive at their jobs Monday morning at 8 a.m. and can't wait until Friday. That used to be me too, if I am being 100% honest. I hated that existence and I'll bet dollars to donuts that you do too, if you are being 100% honest with yourself. However, it is just enough to keep you going day after day, year after year, until.....

Until something wakes you up. Something happens that kicks the chair you were leaning back on and you tumble to the floor wondering what the hell happened. For some people, the boss announces management has decided to downsize. For some it is a phone call from the doctor with some Very Bad News. Some people come home to an empty house with a note on the fridge, "I can't do this anymore, I am leaving you". So your "whole world" falls apart and you react to the news with a sense of loss and grief and anger and rage and despair and regret. But really? Your "whole world"? Either you have a pretty small world or that was quite a gargantuan problem facing you. Everybody has a story, not just you. Everybody feels that their story tops everyone else's because it is happening to them. Their issues engulf them like quicksand and they are so focused on the problem that they can't

possibly see the light at the end of the tunnel, and if they can see light, they are sure it is an oncoming train to run them over. Some people end their lives. Some people drone on about their problems to everyone around them until they want to end their own lives before listening to their tale of woe again. But some people shake themselves into an awareness that they alone are responsible for making the situation change. How we choose to perceive the situation and how we choose to react to it can be a game changer. The job you lost was not the last job on earth. The relationship that just ended was not with the last human on the planet. Painful, yes but not the end of the world though at the time it sure seems like it. Whether you choose change or it happens to be thrust upon you, people do change when they have reason to change.

Change means we have to do something different. Change means we need to meet new people, learn a new skill, wear different clothes, live in a different place, learn a new language or culture or adapt to what initially may be unusual. We can either see it as an exciting opportunity or resist it, clinging desperately to the remnants of familiarity. Given an option, most people will stay put. When there is no option, adjustments need to be made.

Adjustments can be uncomfortable. However, I have found that what was once uncomfortable can become your new comfort level. I arrived in Peru unable to speak Spanish and I resisted learning the language until it was far more painful and frustrating not knowing the language than forcing myself to learn it. While admittedly, I am still not fluent, I can understand and be understood well enough to manage daily life. It is only painful in the beginning, then it is a bit more comfortable, then it is like you always knew what was once alien to you.

The other type of change is when you want or need to change and want to do so as a matter of choice. You want to stop smoking. You realize your health is negatively impacted by drinking too much and too often. You want

to lose weight to look better and to feel better. You want to get out of a relationship that no longer is healthy or beneficial to either of you. You want to change jobs or careers to afford the life you envision for yourself and your family. The quick question becomes, "Do you want it badly enough to do what is necessary to have it?" For most people, it ends right there.

They want a change but only if it simply happens upon them by dumb luck.

Mark Twain once wrote, "It's easy to stop smoking, I've done it hundreds of times." Many people confuse absolute commitment with giving something a try. Master Yoda said, "There is no try, there is only do." Smart bit of wisdom from a little green Muppet. If so many people are clandestinely miserable or even overtly so, why don't people seek to make the necessary changes toward a better, happier, healthier life? From my vantage point outside and away from the distractions that once blinded me, I can see how life is a blur for people. Buried under obligations, responsibilities, debts to pay for things they didn't need in the first place, bloated from eating unhealthily because it tasted good, coerced into consumerism mentality in an effort to be more popular, sexy, stylish or sophisticated. Personal satisfaction remains elusive as it always had. The late great George Carlin reflected on this mentality thusly, "Trying to find satisfaction by buying more stuff is like taping sandwiches to your body to satisfy hunger." The vicious cycle never ends.

Once we realize that if we don't make some personal changes in our lives we are chasing stress, disappointment in our relationships, our bodies will turn on us and our health will decline from what we eat and what we allow to eat us, stress. Confusion is a poor substitute for creative and decision based thinking of your own. Few people have their own opinions, opting rather to get all their information, beliefs, decisions and acceptances from the television or other media. Only a handful of people control the media systems so the masses are basically at the hands and mercy of the

puppeteers. Is taking control of your own life and future scarier than that notion? Can change be that much of a leap of faith considering the "follow the crowd" mentality is herding everyone down a path to a certain personal destruction? Isn't your life and happiness, contentment and what mark you can leave in the world worth at least your consideration? You know it is.

Those who have awakened from the slumber of the masses have learned how to live and what life is supposed to be about. I have to warn you, it will not make you popular with those friends, family and work colleagues that are quite certain that they found contentment behind their nine to five cubicles tinkering away on whatever project their corporate masters assigned to them. Those who are incarcerated resent the freedom that others have discovered. The inspiration you are going to feel and experience will change your thinking, your attitude about everything around you, give you energy to explore new options and when your thoughts change, your actions and activities change too. Imagine actually wanting to only eat foods that are good for you. Imagine carving away from your environmental influences that are negative and personally destructive. Imagine breaking away from a perceived comfort zone to become your very best self. You will develop routines in the morning that set your entire day in motion in positive ways. When you are looking for the best to happen, the best seems to come your way.

Change happens when you have compelling reason to change. I think you are ready.

Changing Your Environment- What You See And Hear, You Become

The language that you speak, the clothes you wear, the culture and customs that you live in with familiarity everyday is all a matter of conditioning. If you were air dropped into a strange, foreign land you would be viewed as quite odd and you would see your new acquaintances equally so. You grew up in a certain environment and were conditioned to what you now perceive a normal. Strange is defined as anything outside of this environment.

However, strange is exactly the direction we are going to go in together. Just like trying any new dish in a restaurant for the first time, it is only new once. You learn new tastes and find that you like them. You will learn to do new things in your life that feel strange at first but once you accept them as part of your environment, they become your new comfort zone and it feels normal and actually good to you and for you.

Most people wake up in the morning struggling to face a new day. There are responsibilities immediately facing you. How you feel upon awakening may not be pleasant. Your muscles may be tight and sore, your thoughts may be swirling as they adjust to awake mode and you need to go to the bathroom right away. How you physically feel sets the stage for how you mentally and emotionally feel, did you know that? It is hard to feel happy and fully alive when your body is sluggish, dragging and achy. As long as you have no physical restrictions or medically recommended against this, I am recommending that, upon awakening every morning, even before getting out of bed, you stretch your body. Stretch yourself as big as you can make yourself with your arms over your head and your legs stretching down comfortably but strongly. Arch your back, make your hands into tight fists then relax them. Go through your body using this tightening/relaxing exercise for your muscles and then get out of bed. The first words out of your mouth, audibly, as your feet hit the floor must be, "Thank you". Why? Maybe you feel you have nothing to be grateful for yet. You want to set the

tone and mood for your day. You are actively taking control of how you want to feel. Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions and conditioners in life. You will want to use it to your full advantage. You are creating the environment of your own as opposed to letting life drop on top of you first thing in the morning. I have found that when I start my day with the audible words "thank you", the day seems to be filled with things I am grateful for. What kind of day could I expect if I groaned, "Awww shit" as my feet hit the floor? I want my day and my life to be on my terms. I want to wake up and walk into the best life I can create for myself. I want to make my own environment because allowing life to happen to be by chance usually is a recipe for disaster and stress. If it is my life, why shouldn't I be the one writing the script for it? Personally, I hate surprises, especially first thing in the morning. I refuse to be a volunteer victim of circumstances.

The next thing I do every morning is to go into a tranquil meditative state.

This is not a religious thing for me. Meditation is simply calming our mind and thoughts and finding a quiet center for your thinking. You are going to be doing a lot of thinking all day, bombarded with the thoughts, ideas, suggestions, demands and orders from many other directions and having a gentle control of your own thinking and intended direction for the day, beginning the first thing in the morning, is imperative. I could write chapter after chapter about meditation but in short, it is a simple and ultraproductive way to harness your own energies to become your best self.

Many think that it must be a complicated and involved process but actually all you need to do it close your eyes and breath slowly and increasingly deeper for a few minutes. Concentrate on your breathing and the peacefulness of the moment. Everything else, every other responsibility, will be there waiting for you later so no need to expend energy on those things just yet. This is your time. This may be the only time you get for yourself all day so treasure the moment. Mediation is one of my best methods to set my internal gauges and temperaments and how I manage my days.

Following meditation, I immediately get my body moving. Muscles need to be moved and maximized, blood needs to get flowing, my metabolism needs to be stepped up, my heart rate increased and all of this tells my brain how I am feeling. As a martial artist, I have learned effective exercises from head to my feet that leave my body feeling alive and awake. What exercises you find effective will depend on your physical condition. It is important to remember not to try to go all Olympic and pull muscles and tear tendons apart. Just gentle movements and rolling of your head, shoulders, arms and wrists, torso and knees would be a great way to start. This morning routine has been my daily "must" for some time now and has helped me to shake off the groggy morning crawl and created a readied me to face the day and whatever challenges that will come my way. You are effectively creating your environment, leaving nothing to chance.

The very next thing most people do in the morning is snap on the television. Even with three hundred channels, is there anything that is going to feed your head on the television, especially the first thing in the morning? The news is depressing, the filler stories are fluff, the early morning events clutter your head and has no real personal benefit for you.

Most people are just so accustomed to the noise that fills the air that they have no idea what to listen to in its place. If you believe, as strongly as I do that, what you see and hear is what you become, then what would you like to hear in the morning that would charge you up and enhance your mind and life? For me, I have downloaded several hours of YouTube videos of motivational and encouraging messages. Even if it is information that I already know, I find it reinforcing. If it is new information, I wrap my head around it and learn how to take my super charged life to a new level. It is also very encouraging to know that I am not some pioneer into a strange new realm of existence but I can travel a path that many others who are enlightened have blazed before me. Their tail lights have become my headlights just as I trust that my tail lights will now become your head

lights. We all stand on the shoulders of each other to become our best selves. I do not own a television. I moved out of a hostal where the television was constant noise into a one room "mini-apartment" and refused to have one to distract me any longer. I found that my thoughts became more profound and my ideas and inspirations came from my experiences instead of being one of the bleating sheep following the talking heads on network programs. Using YouTube videos, I can chose what I will see and hear.

Again my environment is of my making. My time now is well spent writing, reading and learning, and art projects that express myself and heart.

I have discovered that when I journey out into the world with the mindset and body readiness that I have engaged in, I see things differently all around me. You will too. Before I began this enlightened path, years ago, I woke up feeling like total crap, dragged myself out of bed, made coffee, ambled into the bathroom, turned on the television and dreaded facing the necessary evil of a job that paid the bills. How do you imagine I saw, reflected on and treated everybody and everything around me? I had allowed my body to betray me, allowed an artificial stimulant to jolt me into awake mode, allowed whatever happened to be on television to program my mood and in that state I walked into my office a minute before nine already thinking of the first problem that inevitably would invade my space. I share that with you because I want you to know that you are not alone. Most people don't paint the picture that glaringly but if you can relate, then also allow my words to relate that changing your environment and your thought processes will change your life. Change the state of being that you are in will change the results of your days. It doesn't matter who you are or what circumstances you find yourself in. We do not have to be victims to our surroundings, and certainly not voluntarily so. Your brain has all sorts of feel good chemicals like endorphins and dopamine that, once triggered, will make everyday better than the last. It is a matter of choice and willingness to change what once was your life into what you want your life to become.

How long it takes is entirely up to you. There are many self help gurus out there that have discovered and willingly share, for free, that turning your "shoulds" into "musts", making positive changes, overcoming every negative perceived obstacle, finding purpose and having a specific vision for your life does not take years. It can and must be instantaneous, ready to happen when you are. I know there are many in the professional mental health fields charging $150 an hour or more that would disagree with us and pharmaceutical companies probably the most adamant adversaries against such a natural method toward self betterment. It is your choice to decide what is best for you. I am not a doctor. I am curious however, how people a hundred years ago or longer got through life before the advent of psychology, psychiatry and pills to regulate every emotion you have or want to feel. I am well aware what depression feels like. I also know what it feels like to shake it off with exercise movements, long walks and surrounding myself with positive influences and motivation. The change of state is a change of life and it can and should be controlled by you from the inside out.

Now I want to issue a warning to you. Once you have become committed to self enhancement, the effects will be obvious to others around you. Family, friends, work associates and others. People you interact with who are negative, miserable in their own right and locked into their life incarcerations, will see your changes. People do not like change. One of the first things I encountered when I finally refused to be miserable any longer is that my friends would say and do almost anything to pull me back into their own negativity. It is an insidious trap that they may not be doing deliberately. It is just who they are. Their water cooler gossip may be quite true and it is easy to find yourself agreeing with them. You need to be constantly focused on how you want to be, how you want to feel and how you want to live to be able to deflect negativity off of yourself. I call these people and situations, toxic people and toxic environments. Just like any

other toxin that you wouldn't knowingly put in your mouth, see these toxins of the mind as something you need to avoid with equal repulsion. Poison is poison regardless of what form it is in, right? Recognize that you have a new comfort zone with new expanded borders because the old one did not serve you well any longer. The pleasure of feeling good about yourself and life sure beats the pain of the familiar misery with a few hiccups of happiness here and there so remember that when negativity tries to lasso you back into the pit. Inevitably, you will have problems in life. Everybody does. Job issues, divorce, bills, children needing your attention, car repairs, leaking faucets, new aches and pains, disasters and tribulations are all part of being human. It is inescapable and you would do well to expect it to come into your life from time to time, However, your perception of what those things should mean to you is still your choice. A termination from a job is an opportunity to explore new and exciting career choices, possibly becoming self employed successfully. A divorce or end of a relationship is usually very hard on anyone. Some liken it to a death. In retrospect, has any end of a relationship ever been a permanent circumstance that crippled you for life and prevented you from looking for and finding love and happiness again elsewhere? The end of my marriage resulted in my arrival to a South American paradise and a purpose in life that was beyond my wildest imagination. Who could have foreseen that coming? But it was a choice I made for myself. Piece by piece I rebuilt and reinvented myself into who I am today and because my transformation was so incredible I felt compelled by love to share this book with you. How are you enjoying it so far?

Self talk. Only for the crazies of the world? I do not think so. I say what I want to do and see happen, out loud every day, to see if it makes sense when I hear it. How we talk to ourselves and others is an important part of creating our environment. When I mentioned getting up in the morning and audibly saying the words, "Thank you", it is because thinking the words are not as powerful as hearing yourself say them. Hearing your own positive

words out loud reinforces the effect that they have on your mood and manner. I never have problems. I won't allow myself to acknowledge that problems exist. I do have a hell of a lot of challenges though. How I choose to overcome them is the difference between success and looking for another way to conquer them. Sometimes I have to look several times for various ways to get the challenge to turn to good fortune and a positive outcome.

One of my most challenging moments living here in Peru is the ubiquitous homicidal taxis. With traffic police are barely awake and writing tickets require too much effort. Hence, taxi drivers have only their consciences to guide them through pedestrian traffic. Unlike developed countries where a red light means stop, in our town, it is a mere suggestion. If a pedestrian is walking across the street. the taxi might blow their horn as they roll on through. A right turn at a corner into a crowd of pedestrians walking across the street, quite legally, is akin to a bowling alley with human pins. I have taken off more mirrors and used martial arts snap kicks into more doors than I care to admit. Once, as I was crossing the street in front of a car that was stopped waiting for adjacent traffic to clear, he saw a break in the flow and floored it. The fact that I was crossing in front of his car was a non-issue.

I landed onto the hood of his car as he was picking up speed shouting for me to get off of his hood. He only stopped as I repeatedly dented his hood and made a noble effort to grab him through the windshield that I was urgently trying to smash. "You dented my hood!" was his only lament as he finally braked to examine the damage. I wasn't hurt, only amazed and surprised at such a callous and reckless disregard for a human life. Had this happened a few years earlier, there would have been the endangerment of his own life as well. I walked away happy that I was not hurt. I realized that all the shouting and physical consequences in the world was not going to change this man's attitude and apathy that has been in his consciousness probably for decades. I regretted that I didn't hang onto his hood awhile longer because he was going in my direction and I could have used the free

ride. A sense of humor goes a long way to defuse a bad emotional episode.

He has several Jim-shaped dents to remember me and the incident by. My attitude is that I cannot change people so I can live around their audacities and be careful because there is no one I can help from the grave. Attitude is powerful and a positive attitude is a power to deliver you from your worst days. With a proper developed attitude, you will have fewer of those challenging times that ill affect you.

Think about the words you say to describe happenstances. "This sucks" "I hate this job" "I always get stuck on these dog assignments" "I can never catch a break" "My life is so terrible". Really? Always? Never? That bad, really? What picture are you painting in your mind with that kind of thinking and expressions? Negative, sadness, misery. Let's not borrow worries and trouble, there is plenty out there already for everyone. After twenty years as a sales professional and mentor, I had learned that the uncertainty that was part and parcel of the sales profession, keeping a positive mental attitude was imperative. Clients spending tens of thousands of dollars were looking for any reason to walk away just because that is human nature. People are afraid to make commitments and "signing a contract" for many is terrifying for them. None of my clients ever signed a contract, they did however, "endorse the agreement". They never bought car but they did "enjoy their new driving experience". I never have a bad day. I firmly believe and teach others that life comes to you in small fifteen minute segments. A challenging time can be dismissed within that fifteen minute segment and you can begin with the rest of your day. Sometimes there are many fifteen minute segments that happen back to back. No worries, they will pass and we can get on with our otherwise beautiful day.

Life doesn't suck, it could be better. Your spouse or life partner is not an absolute stone bitch, though that may be your only and most profound thought at the time. They, however, may have a hell of a lot more growing to do to become your ideal mate. How you choose to frame an experience or

person is power in the way that you react and reflect on it and them. Ask anybody who has been in jail for a crime against an individual. They will tell you one hundred times out of one hundred that, had they taken a moment to think about what they were contemplating, perhaps walk away or see things a different way, their whole life would have been different.

Years wasted in a cage would have been spent productively and decidedly more happy. You need to focus on a better way to see and speak about your life experiences and those engaged with you. Once of my mantras every morning is to say, out loud, "Words are powerful, words are power." I am so convinced of this that I wrote it on the wall of a location where I meet with a group of my children, in Spanish so that they can benefit from the wisdom as well. Think about it folks. Words can make someone fall deeply in love with you. Words can get you a job. Words can make the difference between good service in a restaurant and getting a sandwich with the "surprise ingredient" in it. Words can start wars and enrage a whole population.

Words can inspire and uplift. Words can bring comfort and relief to the suffering. Words can motivate people to do incredible things that they previously thought were impossible. Napoleon Bonaparte said, " I fear four newspaper reporters more than a thousand bayonets." Words can rip apart the races and spotlight the differences in people so powerfully that some words are only referred to by their first letter. Knowing that you have the power of life and death, emotionally and quite literally in your words, might it be a Very Good Idea to guard what we say, how we say it and to whom we say them. Sir Isaac Newton, smart cookie that he was, shared that there is an equal and opposite reaction to every action. Even in human relations, what goes out from you comes back to you. Sometimes in spades. Whether you believe in Karma, what goes around comes around, Ying Yang or any variety of philosophy offered throughout the world. One thing that everyone can agree on is that what you plant, what you set in motion, you will see again. Words are one way that happens. It is your choice how you

choose to receive. Personally, I hope I get what I have coming to me, based on my word and actions, twenty fold. How many people can say that, that you know?

Fear Fear of failure , fear of success, fear of ridicule, fear of rejection, fear of losing face, fear of spiders, flying, heights, crowds, people that are different, new things, dust, getting sick, getting old, dying, going broke, fear of the government, fear of snakes, fear of driving in bad weather or fear of dogs.

Pick a fear any fear, there are thousands to choose from. Chances are you will be in good company because people have become so accustomed to being afraid of something that they tack on the suffix, "phobia" to legitimize their own brand of fear that they allow to control them. But, guess what?

Fear isn't real. It never was.

If fear was real, such as a fear of spiders, then wouldn't we all be afraid of spiders? When I say fear, I am referring to a mindset and mental conditioning that stays with you. There is a difference between that and an instantaneous occurrence that leaps out at you. A thug that runs out of an alley with a gun in your face is a traumatizing and fearful thing. But after the threat is neutralized and gone, you needn't be afraid to go outside or walk down the street forevermore. Some experiences regarding fear can be permanently traumatizing if we let them. I submit to you that this is a mental conditioning that we can allow ourselves to get beyond if our focus and mental attitude is reorganized to conquer fear. In almost every case that means standing up and facing the thing that you once feared.

Empowerment is a wonderful thing and while admittedly it takes courage,

what are the alternatives if you do not push fear out of your life? You are incarcerated by it forever.

I have mentored new sales professionals in time past and one of the first things I do with them is get them in front of a client as soon as possible. The terror of saying hello to someone that they will be asking to do business with in an hour melts when they see that the client will not kill and eat them. In Peru's outback regions where I find myself regularly among the Quechua people, I saw how fearful many of them were as I approached their villages. Many had never seen a white person before. I spent a very long time to gently introduce myself and sit down, making myself smaller than they were and let them get to know me. What made this particularly difficult in some cases was that they have a legend about "pishtachos." A pishtacho is a white person who allegedly kidnaps children and eats them while using their body fat to grease machines back in North America. If you think that is a tall order and fairly ridiculous to believe, think a moment how other people are taught about different races. Ignorance carved out some very ugly stories about people that happened to be of a different race, nationality, religion or cultural origin. The stories become accepted as fact merely because many people believe them and fear prevails. Hatred breeds fear. Ignorance breeds fear. Intolerance breeds fear. Drawing lines between people for whatever reason, breeds fear. Lack of experience breeds fear.

Stepping beyond your comfort zone also can be a fearful experience, until you do it.

The thing about fear is that it is not a stagnant state of mind. Your mind will search for reasons to support your beliefs and reinforce your fear. Fear the grows and can become all consuming, if you let it. The reverse is true also.

Break the pattern and look for all the reasons that fear is unfounded, reinforce the opposite as fact and fear diminishes and vanishes. Let me share this story that happened to me. Back in 2005, I arrived home one

evening from work. As I stepped out of my car and walked to my front door, I was rushed by six individuals who began beating me, demanding my money, then the keys to my house to raid my home. Two of them had pistols pointed in my face and told me they would shoot me. It is amazing how your mind races when faced with

life or death situation like that. A

thousand thoughts and ideas came to me so fast that I could hardly keep up with them. First was Sun Tzu's words in his masterpiece, "The Art of War".

Confuse and deceive your enemy. I told them to go ahead and shoot me, pointing to a spot on my forehead where they should aim. How do you scare a man with death that is not afraid to be killed? I also assumed that adversaries will not follow directions of their enemy and would opt to do the opposite. Either way I had nothing to lose, as far as I was concerned, I was looking down the barrel of the last five seconds of my life anyway. I also had fifteen years of martial arts training behind me and used everything I learned to neutralize the threat. Though I was well within my right to kill them and knew exactly how, I remember clearly only wanting to block their strikes and stun them as well as dodge their blows and I did it very well.

Someone observing the attack called the police who responded so fast that you would have thought there was free coffee being served. Twenty minutes later four of the six were apprehended. I identified them and they were taken to jail. Fear of consequences and retaliation was my next concern. The ringleader was already on probation for robbing people when he attacked me and a court trial was his last chance of escape. At the courthouse, this career criminal's entire extended family was present and shouted to me in the hallway that I would definitely be killed if I testified against their boy.

Eleven deputy sheriff officers surrounded me for my own protection as I walked into the courtroom. I knew if I backed down and caved into the threats, a criminal would go free to rob and hurt others. I also knew that I would relive the experience cloaked in fear forever if I did not stand up. I testified against the defendant, announced to the family members in court

that they knew where I lived and I would be waiting if they cared to make good on their threats. What the hell, the worst that they could do is kill me, and I already faced that threat. The defendant is still in prison at the time of this writing. The family never made good on their threat and I was redefining my thinking as to what I am no longer afraid of. Was I afraid at the time? Of course, who wouldn't be? Did I allow the fear to prevail and dominate my life? No way. I am always cautious but not paranoid nor afraid to venture out into the streets again. Face down your fears whatever they are, what is the worst that can happen? Ninety five percent of the time, it never will.

Your fears are not real. You cannot go into a store and buy a pack of fear. It does not come in kilos or gallons. It is a mental conditioning only. The monsters under your bed were not real when you were five and the head goblins in your life now are equally fictitious. Yet we allow fear to cause procrastination in everything we wish we could, should and would do.

People who want to start their own business, never do and live a life of regret. People who want to ask a potential partner out on a date never do and possible miss out on a chance for real love. People who have inside of themselves, great ideas, incredible solutions and potential, will die with those great things still inside of them. Books that will never be written, film projects that will never be seen, products that will never be invented and love that will never be shared. Take this book that you are reading right now. It is my fourth one. Is this the best book ever written on the subject?

Maybe not. There are people who have been in this field for decades and scientific researchers who have millions of dollars in studies on the human element and condition that can offer what I may never even scratch the surface of. So what? Without fear or intimidation about what others may offer, I give you my own thoughts and love to help you move a little closer to the person that you have always wanted to become. Read and listen to others who can also help but read and apply this information too. Everybody

comes at the solutions from their own perspective and from the angle that makes sense to them. One common thread among all of us is that we have an overpowering sense of love for humanity to want to share, which supersedes every hint of fear of rejection and intimidation.

As the Nike company advertises, "Just Do It". What do you want to accomplish? Just do it. Who do you need to talk to today? Just do it. How do you want a particular project to develop? Just do it. Stop thinking about all the reasons to not do it. Stop paralyzing yourself with fear. Do not be afraid to be different, unique, appear to others as "out there." Just do it. Imagine people who were consider pretty nutty and faced constant rejection. People who had every reason to give up, embrace fear and walk away. Where would we be today if fear had won out over a couple of bicycle mechanics at the beginning of the last century who had the ridiculous notion of building a flying machine? Yet Wilbur and Orville Wright set out to do just that. With no funding from corporations, publicity or encouragement, they crashed on average five times every time they went out to experiment a new technique.

Just a hundred years later, standing on the shoulders of these gentlemen, space stations now orbit the earth developing new scientific ideas and creations that aid mankind in positive ways. What if Steve Jobs caved into fear that nobody would want a personal computer and Apple was never created? "I can't" are words that should never come out of your mouth, unless you add the tag on word, "Yet" to it. I can't yet but stay tuned people, I am not finished yet. When I created my project Changes for New Hope here in the Peruvian Andes I did not have a clue what to do next or how to do it.

If I had clue money I couldn't even buy a clue. People told me to give up, forget about this idea to help thousands of destitute children and go home.

People even hurled Bible verses at me, "The poor you shall have always," to demoralize my vision and dream. But I reflected on the Wright brothers, Jobs and Wozniak, Colonel Sanders with his one thousand rejections before anyone agreed to buy his secret recipe and a racing jockey named Roscoe

Goose who rode a long shot thoroughbred named Donerail in an, impossible 91-1 odds against them, and won what was the longest odds victory in the history of the Kentucky Derby race. Ordinary people do not do extraordinary things.

Only those who stretch themselves to be extraordinary can do extraordinary things. They do not wait for good fortune to fall into their laps. They seek out the best in life, create what doesn't exist yet and focus on making the world a better place than it ever was before. Living large and living deliberately means living in the face of rejection, fear and defeat. And trust me, there will be defeats and knock downs. Can you think of a champion sports team that never suffered from a defeat? Neither can I. Every victorious army lost battles along the way. Every Oscar winning actor was rejected for a film role, Every person who ever accomplished anything worth remembering was pushed aside, mocked and ridiculed before they were seen as visionary and successful. Living large does not mean that you will live in an absence of fears but in spite of them and beyond any control that they will have upon your journey and happiness.

I want to end this chapter with the words of visionary that could have pulled the ladder up behind himself, enjoyed his life with his large and wealthy family and left the problems of mankind up to somebody else.

Instead he dedicated his life to public service and encouraged his children and associates to do the same. Had he lived, he would have been a far greater service to relieve the suffering around the world but was killed, as many visionaries are, at the hand of a man with a gun and a grudge. Senator Robert Kennedy encouraged millions with these now immortalized words which resonates among those who believe that a better world is possible even today: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most

frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people will not feel insecure around you. When we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same.�

Foods To Just Die For

If it shows up on a plate, most people will eat it. If we have to loosen out belts to make room to get it all down our throats we will clean a plate and look for desert. When I write about living large and deliberately, it is imperative to include a chapter about our eating habits. Especially in the United States where obesity is killing the population, we have to explore a bit more why we eat like we do.

While I am not a doctor, a nutritionist or weight manger by any stretch of the imagination, I submit that I don't have to be to recognize the obvious.

Around the world in developed countries, there are opportunities to try every possible dish that every chef has ever created. The problem is that we want to try them all in one sitting. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat as much as the next guy and when I arrived in Peru and saw the food and the small portions that the food was served in, I almost lost it. In the Andes almost every meal is a portion of rice, potatoes a small piece of chicken or fish and a glass of some kind of fruit drink. I found myself ordering two meals every time I went to the restaurant just to get full. A funny story I

share is when I was invited to a friend's home for dinner with her family and I was told to go in the kitchen and help myself to dinner. Being new in Peru, I was unaware of the small portions and helped myself to the chicken. My friend went nuts. What I ate was a normal portion by my American standards but she informed me that what I ate was for the entire family.

Who knew? I was weighing in at about 250 pounds back in those days. I am tall and not considered obese by U.S. social standards which confused me in Peru when kids referred to me as "Gordito" or fat. Within six months of living among the locals, eating what they ate in portions that they ate and walking everywhere I went, I dropped off fifty pounds without even trying.

There are no fast food chains where I live, which made a big difference in my choices. I thought about my lifestyle back in the U.S. and now see that I was slowly heading for heart problems, diabetes, a stroke or a myriad of other health related issues. Usually, we address health issues as they come up and try to fix it with medications which doctors are all too happy to provide. The notion that we can address many health issues by adjusting to what we eat and how much we eat scares the medical industries and pharmaceutical companies into near panic. Reportedly, medical doctors receive only one semester of nutrition education in their entire medical training.

We need to understand that the results of a lifetime of poor eating habits cannot be reversed with a pill. A discipline and relearning how to eat and how much to eat is crucial if we are going to live healthy lives. Doesn't it strike you as bizarre that we live well into our eighties but our bodies begin to quit on us decades earlier? Could we rethink our health plans and go from medical solutions to preventive measures? I would rather eliminate red meat from my regular diet than submit to chemotherapy for the cancer that it caused. I would rather moderate my consumption of alcohol than get on a list for a replacement liver, wouldn't you? After I learned what was in carbonated soft drinks, I can no longer seem to get it past my lips. After

talking to people who are suffering from adult onset diabetes, I began reading and learning what I should eat and more importantly, what I need to eliminate. Habits are learned. All habits are learned and yes they are hard to break. Habits can be unlearned as well, if they are our on our list as "musts."

As humans we are all hardwired to be motivated by two things. We either are in pursuit of pleasure or we are trying to avoid pain. There may be deceptions that we allow ourselves to be fooled by, substituting one for another but ultimately, pain or pleasure is what we are after as human animals. People smoke because it tastes good. I don't smoke but that is what I am told by those who do. My dear departed Dad smoked. In fact I never remember ever seeing him without a cigarette in his mouth or one in the ashtray. He told me growing up how smoking was bad and that I should never start. He wished he never started but could not seem to quit. The pleasure was just too compelling. At age sixty nine he had a heart attack. In the hospital his doctor told him point blank, "You will either stop smoking as of today, or you will die." There was no third option. The pleasure of smoking was morphed by the pain of death and Dad never picked up another cigarette. Stents in his arteries, a pacemaker and a few valves replaced for the damage the cigarettes caused over the years kept him alive another sixteen more years. I tell you this story to underscore the pain and pleasure that food is to us as humans.

People eat for more reasons than nourishment. We eat to feel good. We eat as a social activity among friends. We eat as a status symbol. To be seen in a classy expensive restaurant is ego enriching and impressive to your date. We eat to feel better when we are sad and depressed and we eat to celebrate various occasions. Food consumption seems to be a catch all to every occasion and event. It becomes unhealthy when we eat as an emotional crutch. When we see ourselves becoming obese and make excuses because

that seems to be easier than controlling our eating habits. Face it people, you are not big boned. When was the last time you saw a human skeleton?

Have you ever seen a fat skeleton? To say that you cannot help being fat is an excuse and lie that you have told yourself as your heart and other organs suffer the consequences. Though you may not realize it now, the suffering you will endure in your latter years will not be minimized with a quick fix pill. It is essentially a slow suicide. It is sad because it is preventable. People are in need of knee replacements because the weight on their joints was excessive. Yet that still does not motivate those patients to alter their eating habits. Eating is another type of addiction and can be managed as one. In the U.S., as I assume is true to a large degree in other countries, people sit in their houses watching television or on their computers, snacking. Snacks usually are greasy, saturated fat loaded, salty, sugary and always at your fingertips. Imagine substituting those snacks with celery or carrot sticks.

While the internet affords us every piece of public information ever known to man, how many times have we researched what we are putting into our bodies? The pills consumed to fight obesity are ill affecting you with other side affects too. Doesn't it make sense to just manage what you eat instead?

If we begin to associate pain, death, suffering, sickness and misery to our current unhealthy eating habits, we will naturally begin to start looking for alternatives and find nutrition as it was intended to be for our bodies. But you have to want to. You have to understand that you need to. Consider all the fitness centers and work out gyms that are waking distance to us that sign people up a year at a time. They are well aware that most people will not stick to their commitment to get in shape. Those that do reap the rewards.

I like to share this analogy. Consider how you take care of your cars. People know that when one dies, you just go out and buy another one. You change the oil whenever you think of it. Usually the cheap stuff, right? Of the many choices of gasoline, most folk will get the cheapest brand and ignore the

knocking sound, after all, it will go away eventually. Many people I know have never been under the hood of their cars. They pay for repairs as opposed to preventive maintenance and trade it in just before it leaves them on the side of the road somewhere. Sound familiar? Now, let's pretend that the government, during a rare moment of brilliance, mandated that everyone of legal age was issued one car, for life. It can be any kind of car you want but when it dies, you walk or take the bus. How would you take care of that car? Change the oil every three thousand miles without fail, right? High test gasoline for the optimum performance, of course. Wash and wax it every week so the body doesn't rust out. If you heard a noise under the hood you would get it in front of the best mechanic you know the same day. That is a car, a metal machine. The pain of losing it and walking is too much to bear isn't it? There will be no bus rides everyday in your future. Now let me ask you this question; how many bodies do you get in a lifetime? Just one. See my point? Replacement parts, pills, surgeries, heart conditions, pain and trouble just walking a mile or a few kilometers, diabetes and blood pressure issues threatening a stroke at any time is all manageable by refocusing your thinking about what you allow to go into your body.

What makes more sense, preventive maintenance or repair? Taking care of your heart or going under the knife to insert artificial parts replacing what you ruined by your lifestyle? People sacrifice their health to make more money and have fun, then in their later years, sacrifice their money and fun to try to regain their health. I know how it is because I used to do it to. I drank whatever tasted good for me, I never read a label. I sat in my home watching the television or online, sat in my car, sat in my office and moved only if I had to, with a groan of exertion. Exercise was for those health nuts, I was just fine. I ate whole steak and cheese subs for lunch and if I was working late, I ate another one for dinner. Fries and super sized soda. I was confident that I was doing just fine because my doctor told me at my last

check up that I had the body of a healthy male years younger than my chronological age. Of course that was when I was in martial arts training four times a week, which was.... how many years ago? Self deception. It was easy because I loved the taste of everything I was eating and drinking. It was easy to justify when everybody around me was even larger, at the doctor's offices routinely and were getting surgeries to correct various conditions. I was fine. Within my first few months in Peru I learned differently. High altitude living, over 3000 meters or twice as high as Denver Colorado and everything was uphill. Taxis could always be counted on to double or triple charge unsuspecting gringos so I opted to walk everywhere I went. Many places I needed to be were up steep hills and mountainous climbs. Food was mostly natural, fresh, and I began to lose my craving for unhealthy foods that were not even available here in the Andes. What was readily available were fruits and vegetables and considering we were in the tropics, that was the variety of food I ate. Mangos, papaya, pineapple, guanabana, cherimoya, grapes, bananas, grains and beans. Peru also has hundreds of different kinds of potatoes too. I began to eat less and ate more nutritious foods that afforded my body health and energy. I no longer felt weighed down and sluggish. Water replaced carbonated sugary soda drinks. My weight stabilized and I feel better now than I did when I was thirty. One day I was going through a box of old clothes, some that I arrived with years ago. One pair of pants I had was so large that no one could believe they were mine. I could fit into them twice, literally. As I mentioned, I am not a doctor and I cannot make medical or health related recommendations for you specifically. I would urge you though to research for yourself, the substances you are putting into your system. Check with nutritionist and or a health practitioner as part of your preventive maintenance for a healthier and vital lifestyle. Living large and deliberately is dependent on you being healthy to be happy.

Goals

Yes friends here it is, the moment you knew was coming. I could write several volumes on just this topic alone. I hope that what I present here to you is enough to encourage and motivate to create solid and manageable goals and give you a nudge toward obtaining them every day. If you want to live large and live deliberately, you have to make specific plans and goals to do it. Nobody ever tripped over success, never having a bad day since.

Everybody who you ever knew or heard about that was successful was not simply lucky, born into the right family, was at the right place at the right time or rubbed a rabbit's foot. You see the end result and say "Wow!" What you probably never see is the thousands of hours of training, sacrifice and dedication to their goals that was invested to make their dreams come true.

You can be, have, do, accomplish and achieve anything you desire in life without false limitations that you impose upon yourself. The one rule is that you absolutely must be the individual that this kind of success can happen to. If you wanted to be a successful movie actor, you would put yourself in New York or Hollywood and learn the skill of acting wouldn't you? You wouldn't park yourself in Fargo, North Dakota and just wait to be discovered. If you wanted to become a millionaire you would need to surround yourself with people who have already made a million dollars and learn what they know and how they did it, wouldn't you? How far would get in your pursuit if you continued to stick around your broke friends?

Remember, what you see and hear is what you become. We become our environment. Consider how people initially speak to themselves when

designing a goal. "I hope I don't fail" or "I want to lose weight, stop smoking, or I don't want to be miserable or poor anymore." That is a recipe for failure.

Your focus is on what you do not want. You are looking over your shoulder and you will ultimately fail. You have to look forward with an inspiring goal in mind. "I want to attain a healthy body" I want clean and clear lungs" "Here is my step by step plan to build the dream business, life or relationship."

You need to be realistic without being unfairly limiting. If you want to run the Boston Marathon as the fastest person that ever ran it, and you are a paraplegic, you might want to consider another goal. But physical limitations aside, do not let a lack of anything to dwindle your dreams. A lack of money seems to be the excuse many come up with. A lack of resources is merely a lack of knowing where to go to find the resources.

Resourcefulness is a powerful thing. When I created Changes for New Hope in 2009, I started with my life savings but soon recognized that it was going to drain me to nothing shortly if I did not find resources from others soon.

My ultimate goal was going to require many thousands of dollars a year. I did not have the first clue where to start looking. My friends went silent almost immediately when I told them about my project and how their support was urgent. I put my website together and shared my vision far and wide. I specifically touched base with everyone and any organization that did what I wanted to do to learn how they managed funding and support.

Many people shared ideas and knowledge is very powerful stuff. Small successes proved that what we were doing was a value to the children in destitution

and

more

people

slowly

came

to

partner

with

us.

Resourcefulness saved us, whereas my resources would have soon limited my success to just a few years. People also complain that they do not have the right people. There are six billion people on the planet to choose from. I can almost guarantee you that you will select the wrong people into your goals. In my first book, A Gringo in Peru-A Story of Compassion in Action, I wrote about some of my first volunteers from the local university and the

professor that sent them. Six young ladies whose most acute interest in my project was to grab anything that wasn't nailed down, demand as much money for themselves as they could and threaten me with wide spread slander if I did not give it to them. They were almost expelled from the university for their extortion and the professor who put them up to it was subsequently fired. Yeah, those first few months were a doozey. If it was not my determination of a vision and goal for me to succeed, I would have had plenty of reasons to quit right then and there. Goals are "musts" not "shoulds". If you put yourself in an optimum place both physically and mentally, success is going to happen no matter how many times you need to pick yourself up after a failed attempt. You cannot stop someone who won't be stopped. People tell me that they do not have the time to accomplish their dreams. Really? The rich man is rich and the poor man is poor. The successful person is successful and the unsuccessful person is unsuccessful.

Both have exactly twenty four hours in their days. What is the difference?

How they choose to live those twenty four hours is the key. You cannot get up at 9 a.m. every morning and expect the day to serve you with opportunities. Those who have goals and vision are usually up before the sun. They have reason to get up early, and have a life management plan that is clear to them. It is written down and they review it regularly. I have my focus written on a board to I can see it immediately when I get up. I keep notes in my pockets as constant reminders. I have a small "Gratitude Stone" also that I touch when I reach in my pocket which triggers me to remind myself to think of three things that I am grateful for. My plans for any given day could be altered by an emergency or an important issue that requires my attention but then I get back to doing what needs to happen in my day. Time is to serve you not the other way around. When I worked for companies and considered what I could be doing with my life while I was incarcerated in a sales store waiting for the next customer to come through the door, I was frustrated beyond belief. The only thing in life that can be

taken away from me and I would never have a chance to get back is my time. Successful people find time for what is important to them. Not having enough time is an excuse that I find intolerable. Life itself is made up of time.

The first thing I do when I set a goal is to erase any boundaries around it. I make my goals big, seemingly impossible, unrealistic, shoot for the moon goals. This could be discouraging if I do not manage my thinking properly.

Think of the outrageous goals successful people have made for themselves.

President John F. Kennedy told the world that the United States will go to the moon and return their astronauts safely by the end of the decade. He didn't have the first clue how it would be accomplished. I understand that the technology had not even been developed yet to do it. Yet on July 20, 1969 the world watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hopping around on the lunar surface on live television. From his parent's garage Steve Jobs, with Steve Wozniak put together a personal computer, crude as it was by today's standards and without knowing how to do it yet, marketed it to the public. Before his thirtieth birthday Jobs was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Martin Luther King Jr., before the advent of the internet and with massive resistance against him, found a way to march on Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963 an estimated 250,000 people heard about his arrival and gathered to hear his speech that moved millions of hearts over the next few decades. He also said, "You do not have to see the whole staircase to take the first step." So often we think we have to have everything planed out to the last detail before we leap into our destiny. There will never be a perfect time, a perfect opportunity or a perfect set of circumstances to make success assured. You are the one who makes it a success, not everything around you.

It never happens exactly the way you imagined either. And another thing, you will suffer failures, disappointments setbacks and defeats. Just like everybody who ever stepped out to be the unique, extraordinary and a creative visionary. The reason why we succeed while others fail is because a

winner gets back up, every time. We make adjustments as necessary to avoid making the same mistake again. But we get back up as many times as it takes. Why? Because we did not set a goal to see if we could do it. We set a goal ...to do it! It was not possible to quit, go home, explain away why it didn't work out or stop. It was not something we thought we should do, ought to do or wanted to see happen. It was a burning passion, it was an absolute inside of us that blinded us to reasons to accept failure, or think of excuses, or be distracted. The only option was to succeed, to find the way where no way could be found. When success is as important to you as the air that you breathe or the food that you eat, when it is like another child that you are embracing in your arms, then you will be a success. For me anything less is dabbling at a hobby. Alexander the Great told his commanders to burn their ships, there was no option when facing the enemy army but victory. Commitment means just that. 100%, all in, whatever it takes to win, victory. When that is your focus, the next thing you do is look intelligently at those who have accomplished what you want to accomplish to model yourself and plans after a successful person who has done it before you. Why reinvent the wheel? You also see the possibilities, "If they can do it then so can I" They dreamed big, so will I. Amazingly, the "hows" will come to you. The blanks in your brain get filled in with great ideas and you suddenly see opportunities everywhere you look to advance your goals. I have been snapped awake in the middle of the night with an idea that was the perfect solution to a situation I have developed when I allowed the how to come to me. People that I would be talking to would make a suggestion, without even knowing what I was intending to do, that moved my plan forward. Remember that you only fail if you quit. Winners never quit.

Be specific. One of the ways that you can actually invite failure is to be ambiguous in your plans. You might not know quite "how" to accomplish it, but you have to be specific in your plans and ideas regarding the ultimate

outcome you want to see realized. You cannot be dynamic and driven to a half baked plan. If you have a general idea, that is fine, color it in. Give your goal or vision a defining feature. What will it accomplish and how will it benefit mankind. "I want to make a lot of money" is not a goal, it is an outcome. Besides, what is "a lot of money?" List out, on paper, what you intend to do first. Where do you need to start looking for materials and supplies that you will need? What funds are available and where will you look for additional capital if you need it? Use all of the W question words.

Who, what, when, how, why, which, and where. Fill in those blanks to start with. Be as specific as you possibly can be and do not be concerned about the unknowns. They will present themselves soon enough. Whether your goal is to begin a profitable business, to start a non-profit organization or manage a community project in your town, or just your own self improvement, the structure is the same.

The problem with most people seems to be inertia. Bodies at rest tend to remain at rest. Unless your goal is a powerful and driving force within yourself, you won't make the first effort and even if you do, the second step is a bridge too far. I once knew a woman who wanted to be independent and self sufficient by starting her own home based business. I asked her what kind of home based business she had in mind. She didn't know. Where was she going to look to learn about home based business opportunities? She didn't know that either. How much capital did she have to get started? None.

When was she planning to get this rolling? When the time was right. In short, she did not have a vision or a goal, she had a wish. She never began, success was never the burning desire in her heart.

Action. The greatest, best thought out plans in the world and a wishful thinking dream are separated by one thing only, action. Goals and visions are intangible things. No one can believe in anything you present to them if you are not taking action and breathing life into your plans. You cannot live

in a blueprint, the blueprint is the plans for the house Action, hammer, nails lumber, workers and bricks make the blueprint a house. Focus on action, jettison distractions and make the necessary adjustments as you see fit is a path to success. You believing 100% that it will happen and most importantly, you believing in you 100%, is why it is going to happen. Those who inhibit your vision either by negativity, laziness, if they were supposed to be helping you, or a lack of commitment to your vision with passion need to be removed from your project. It is very hard to say goodbye to someone after you have been side by side but the goal is the objective, not the making of friends. In my project, for example, I have a young man working with me who initially was great. Of course he needed some guidance but overall, he was on time, energetic and motivating the children in positive ways. Who knows why people change? After a couple of years, this same young man became a shell of his former self. He became disassociated with the project, he was late every day, as I was expanding the project to reach hundreds more children, he was resisting every plan to make it happen. Once his attitude turned outright disrespectful and contrary, I had to make the decision to remove him from the project before he ruined everything that I had spend all my time and money developing for five years. The project soared after that. The following year our project reached over two thousand children, we held three art exhibitions, developed a vitamin program and provided anti-parasite medicine to over thirteen different groups of children throughout the region. School supplies, shoes and socks and clothing were donated to keep the children warm and healthy. We developed a photojournalism essay which was published in several e-magazines and websites and many of our most "out there" goals were being reached. Action, and the removal of anything whether in your mind or in your face, is imperative to your success. Having an action plan, even if you need to modify it, is essential to your daily success. Everybody can tell you what they want to see happen in five years from now but you need to plan today

and for next week and next month what you are going to do to get there from here. Every day. Do not overwhelm yourself because then you will see a mountain too high to climb, but perhaps three to five goals to accomplish for the day. One of my own obstacles was that I had to fill a page of what I intended to accomplish each day. Noble as it was, even if I got most of the things done I felt a sense of lack because there were undone things yet.

From listening to other motivational speakers and writers, I realized that small wins matter. Base hits, if you are a baseball fan like I am, will get the game won. Every base hit, every advancement of your goals step by step is a lot more than many people ever begin to do. In time those many base hits, those small wins, add up to a massive success. I became more successful as I adjusted my days to include three to five small wins. I see how it gets me closer to the victories that I deem important and a "must" for my vision. I help others with their goals by also sharing this important adjustment, you are not going to save the whole world today. Even great people, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Churchill and Michael Jordan did not do it all. But they were exceptional in their own fields of endeavor because they had focus, action and a burning desire to accomplish what they set out to do regardless of any obstacles which they all had plenty of.

This is how we all have learned to live large and deliberately. There are many more thoughts about goals and having vision, but this eases you closer to being that visionary that will make the changes in the world you want to see happen.

Gratitude

If you expect to live a life beyond your most incredible imagination, you need to master this one single element above anything else you will ever learn. Gratitude. Everything in life is a gift and needs to be appreciated as such. From the time that you open your eyes in the morning and on throughout the rest of your day, being grateful for every piece of it and looking for other things to be grateful for will paint your daily life. I understand that it is easy to be grateful for life, fresh air, birds chirping outside the window of your comfortable and cozy home. Who couldn't find reasons to be grateful if your life is lifted out of a Disney movie? Can we also find a seed of gratitude when things are going all nuts and topsy turvy?

When life is handing your disappointment after disappointment and there is adversities everywhere you turn, where can you find a reason to be grateful?

These are the moments that you will find gratitude in your deep roots embedded in integrity and character that will pull you through the tough times. One thing I always remind myself of whenever I face challenges that are seemingly overwhelming is that I have faced worse. The success that I have today was built on the ashes of adversities of what I considered back them, insurmountable odds. I became stronger, not as a matter of convenience, but out of a necessity to survive and prevail because the alternatives were unimaginable. Because of the violence that seemed to be part of my daily stress, I became a proficient martial artist. This gave me more than the physical skills I needed to prevail against threats but also taught me self esteem and confidence and developed a healthy and strong body. The mental strength it created in me is something that I rely on daily.

The challenge of losing my job as a mechanic in a waste water plant, opened another door, forcing me to seek out new opportunities, career choices, and develop professional skills that I was unaware at the time I was even capable of. Within a year I had taken off my coveralls and laid down my tools and put on a business suit, carried a briefcase and doubled my income in a professional environment. It was a change that I couldn't have

imagined for myself but the unfortunate turn of events became something I could be very grateful for. Now whenever changes take place in my life I see them as opportunities not yet realized and I am immediately grateful for them, instead of being angry and bitter. Gratitude is an attitude that you consciously must adapt. It is a "Must" in my own life. If you can accept that your perceptions, whatever they may be for you, are real to you, then it serves you well to form your perceptions in situations that show you the beauty in life, the possibilities and the opportunities that await you. Some people are volunteer victims and will complain about everything around them. We have all seen these kinds of people that would find a something to complain about in every situation. They can find the cloud in every silver lining. People who have made being miserable an art form. You need to distance yourself from these people so that their attitude does not become infectious, overwhelming your otherwise happy day. I keep a "gratitude stone" in my pocket. Whenever I happen to reach in my pocket for keys or change and touch it, I have trained myself to immediately think of three things that I am grateful for. Does that sound silly? It's not silly if it works. It keeps my mind and focus on positive and in a state of gratitude. Your state of mind forms your thoughts about everything around you. People tend to allow themselves to be influenced by everything around them regardless of what it is. Politics, Hollywood gossip, and goo gobs of things that are filling the air with noise that has no possibility to enhance your life. People know all about the issues happening in Washington, London and Moscow and have no clue what their own children are doing in the next room. These are distractions in your life. Gratitude is hard to feel when your concerns are about global issues and New York fashions and who is dancing with the stars this week. Gratitude is a very intrinsic emotion which becomes a very tangible element in your life. Your gratitude is an energy that wraps itself around negatives and turns them into positives or dissolves them. It sees possibilities and opportunities in defeats and upsets.

I have been asked if the attitude of gratitude isn't just a creative con job I play on myself. Am I just psyching myself out and just shaving off the puzzle pieces of a bad situation to make them appear better in my own thinking? A good question to be sure. My response is that gratitude opens doors for me to see beyond the situation in front of me. I am grateful for the opportunity to deal with this challenge that will ultimately make me stronger and show me how to manage yet another difficulty. It is a stumbling block that I need to find a way to turn into a stepping stone. I will find a way to climb on top of and see higher and farther than ever before. I may not always find a way, no one is successful in 100% of their endeavors but with an attitude that the circumstance is here to make me a better person and develop my personal skills so that I can better serve those who may be in similar situations, the chances of success are much greater that I will succeed. It is a medical fact that a mindset of gratitude enhances your immune system. Positive and grateful people get sick less often. Personally, I am rarely if ever sick and when I am, it is usually minor and just for a day.

This is amazing to me because I am around children all day in pueblos and villages where sanitation is not a primary concern. Filthy animals. dogs, pigs, cats and sheep roll around with the children and washing their hands is not as common as in other developed countries. There is always a very real threat of contracting tuberculosis as well as a myriad of other diseases.

I know one day something will get to me, I can not live forever. But until that time, I am grateful for the opportunity to lift children out of destitution and despair and the love I have for them and their families is a warm comforting blanket that lays across each village. I am grateful for the love the pueblos share with me as well. My actions follow my thoughts, my passion and my love, and it increases every day many times over.

Your mind doesn't always know how, that is all right. Those blanks in your mind will be filled in because that is how your brain functions. Questions and answers seek out each other and find each other eventually. I ask many

questions every day. How to do something is a mystery and suddenly someone will appear somewhere throughout the day and make a suggestion. Boom, answer time. Be curious, let unknown things in your mind reach out for answers unconsciously and those blanks will get filled in because your mind will be scanning for them. It is not magic. It is something in your brain, according to what I have read, called the Reticular Activating System. RAS for short, which, among other things, laser focuses on what you tell your brain to look for. Would you like a demonstration? Go outside and look up at the clouds. See how many horses you can see. You will see dozens of them. How many elephants would you see? None, because you did not tell you brain to scan for them. This is why people who are negative are total experts on why a project will fail, why it won't work, why tomorrow will be even worse than today and the sky is falling. They are sure Murphy's Law was written especially for them. In bold print. Do you know what they find? That they are right, just ask them. They can prove it by a list of various things that they have found that are bad, ugly, miserable, unfair, painful and otherwise downright shitty. They are mad at the world. Can you imagine going through life like that without wanting to put a pistol in your mouth right after dinner? No wonder they feel every ache and pain and get sick often and misery follows them around like a lost puppy. They attract it like a magnet. Ok, let's look at the flip side. The world and your life in it is a beautiful and wondrous place full of adventures and excitement. People that you will meet are all different and some will become friends for life and others that might be like the people I described earlier are there for your amusement and serve as a "Don't let this happen to you" lesson. You also have a few aches and pains but because you don't focus on them, you hardly notice them. Besides, your exercise routine every morning helps to stretch them away. You drink water regularly which dilutes any toxins in your body so it can run at optimum capacity. There may be challenges throughout your day and you accept that nothing is perfect in life, in fact life is not fair.

But that is just fine by you because, how can you be the hero in your life story if there are no villains? How are you suppose to be a winner if you have nothing to win against? Did you think you were going to excel at this game called life by default? Of course not. You are smarter than that. Just like your muscles, your brain gets stronger, not automatically, but by enduring resistance. So you are grateful for the opportunity to flex your mind and heart by dealing positively against the resistance against you.

Unless you live in Vanuatu, you are clearly aware that no matter what you face, nobody is going to kill you and eat you. (reportedly there are still tribes in Vanuatu that still practice cannibalism, so when making vacation plans...) You are realistic that not every single person on this planet is going to love you. Perhaps it is because you are a different color, religion, political stripe, are more successful, live in a different lifestyle, you don't have what they do you have what they don't, you remind them of someone they don't like elsewhere in life, or pose some sort of professional threat to their security, you are better looking than they are and jealousy is an issue, and on and on. Think a second. Are any of those issues you fault? Not a one, the problem is inside of them not you. Smile, be grateful for your life and keep right on living large and living deliberately. That, my friends, is your destiny. Believe it, embrace it and act upon it every day. I do and though my situation may be unimaginable to many, here in a third world environment, I am grateful and content beyond my wildest dreams, and I can dream big.

I will now ask you to stop reading, get yourself a pen and paper and write down just ten things that you are grateful for. Naturally, you can grab the low hanging fruit, health, life, breath, my family, a roof over your head and food in your fridge. So I will ask you to write down ten more beyond those. I want you to really dig deep and realize how many incredibly wonderful things you have in your life to be grateful for. Things that you may not have realized before because you took them for granted. Gratitude touches every aspect of your life. Train your brain to look for and see those little things to

be grateful for. In fact they are not little things at all, many people in the world wish they could experience what you consider your worst day. Be specific and be positive. Gratitude does not say, "I sure am glad I am not sick". Gratitude says, "I am grateful that I am healthy and strong, my body is vibrant and fully alive." Gratitude is specific, "I am grateful for the opportunity to meet such wonderful people who have enhanced my life with ideas and considerations such as ______________." Itemize your list, just like you use to do when you were miserable. Have you ever noticed how the miserable ones can itemize? They can tell you the day and time every injustice ever happened to them even if it happened twenty years ago. They can tell it in such vivid detail that you would think it just occurred. We all have stories like that. I have more than most. I used to have a endless reel loop in my head playing all the time about the unfairness that I endured at the hands of vicious and deliberately cruel people. But one day I had to break out of that orbit or it would rob me of every chance that I would ever have for happiness of any kind. It took a lot of effort and constant focus to force myself to turn bitterness into gratitude. But then, after I did, when I realized the pain was too much to bear any longer, I found a new way to see it all and gained immense pleasure in a new orbit for my thoughts to travel.

You do not need pills or alcohol to do this. You just need to learn how to rewire your brain. Learn how to shrink the thoughts that do not serve you well, turn them into an imaginary piece of trash that you are going to throw in a fire and forget about for now. It is your trash. You can dig into your mind and pull it out again if you want to, but you really want to move on with your life and be happy and this was stopping you. If happiness is a pleasure that you absolutely must have, then whatever stands in your way must be discarded as too painful to hold onto any longer. You can not have both misery and pleasure. Pick one and focus on it. Then let gratitude replace the old and painful memory. Let it wash over you and release you from negativity and see clearly, maybe for the first time, to absolute joy that

is yours. Look at your list. Add to it when you think of something else to be grateful for, maybe something new. Practice, just like anything else, will make it your new habit. It will replace the old habit that never served you well. Gratitude is not fragile. It is one of the most powerful energies on the planet. People seem to think that good things never last and bad things are here to stay. Only if you think so. Nothing is going to stop you from experiencing your dreams and vision. Only you can stop you. Establish yourself on a base of gratitude every day, and you are unstoppable, invincible and powerful beyond measure. Trust me folks, I did it, so can you.

I share this with you from the deepest love of my being.

Self Esteem

If gratitude is the currency for success in your life, self esteem is the gold that backs it. Everything that you have read up to this point is useless to you if you do not have a solid sense of self esteem. Not to be confused with ego, arrogance or belligerence, self esteem is the sense of your personal value.

Do you feel that your life has value to yourself and to others? A better question is this; how are you of value to your own development, your family, your environment and society? You realize that you were not born to work, pay bills and taxes and just die, right? Neither was your life supposed to be an exercise in grabbing everything that you can in life and just sit on it.

People who live solely for and to the exclusive benefit of self, have set themselves up to have every smidgen of self esteem shattered regularly. We

are not our possessions. We are not our looks and beauty. We are not our social media connections. We are not valued by what we have, know, what degrees we have, our material wealth, nor the associations that we belong to.

People who rate and judge themselves and others by these things are self deceived and they are walking around blind without a cane. Many people lack a self esteem that will sustain them through the worst of times because they compare themselves with others who may be more capable or have learned methods of survival in this life and consider themselves incapable.

If you see yourself as equal to every other person on the planet then you will understand that if they can do it, it can be done, thus, you can do it too.

Envy and jealousy comes from comparing yourself to others, to your own demise. Arrogance, greed and false pride comes from comparing yourself to others as well and leads to your own demise. I recently read where there has never been a moving and storage truck following a hearse going to a graveyard. You are not going to take your possessions with you.

Your sense of self worth, self esteem then must be something that is based on the value you are, as a human being, to others. I believe that we are all here to interconnect, interact and reflect goodness to each other. I feel a deep sense of self worth based on what I am doing here in Peru with these children. There is probably a thousand people who could be in my place doing this work better than I can but they are elsewhere, watching television, drinking with their friends in local night spots or otherwise occupied with their own lives, so I am here just doing what I can to make this piece of the word a little bit better for children in destitution. I feel an enormous sense of personal pride and self respect for myself and the results of my efforts. I will one day die with that sense deep within me in total contentment. What I have believed about myself and my capabilities and possibilities became manifested results. Just as yours are. Those who have a strong sense of self esteem are the people who imagine great things and then produce them for the benefit of mankind. The light bulb, the airplane,

the personal computer and medicines that cure diseases that a century ago people died from, were all created by people and teams of people who decided that they could achieve and accomplish what was, at the time, impossible. You will probably never know the struggles each of them went through and the discouragements and disappointments that they endured.

Those all paled in the face of their ultimate successes. But without self esteem, a solid belief that they were able to do more with their lives than fill an office and make a living, we would be sitting today reading by candle light. It would still take six months to cross the continent and we would be communicating by snail mail, learning about news weeks after it happened.

There are thousands of reasons why you are worthless, unqualified, incapable, not good enough and useless. You already know the reasons because people have told you them since you were a child. Perhaps a parent, who lacked self esteem in their own right, spilled their own negativity onto you. Inpatient supervisors, forgetting that they once had a first day too, berate your job performance mercilessly. "Friends" mocking every thought that you have makes you not want to use your mind for other creativity for fear that you will be further put down. Society itself tells you that without a university degree, you are going nowhere in life because that is the gold standard of self worth. The list of what you are not can bury you under a pile of ludicrous negativity. If you were only a different color, had different parents, had more money, had a different upbringing, were smarter, more beautiful or handsome, did not have the physical handicaps, the negative stigmas, a different environment things would have worked out so much better for you and you would have a chance in life. I am here today to tell you that every single bit of that is utter nonsense, total bullshit and outright malarkey! Do yourself a service and read many of the life stories of what are now considered great people throughout history, as I have. I was deeply encouraged by the life stories of people like Nelson Mandela for example. A black man in Apartheid South Africa who came out of twenty seven years in

prison to become the president of the country. Do you think he could have accomplished that without a solid sense of self esteem and personal value?

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, had no university education, though many others who were determined to be the first to build a flying machine did, as well as massive financial backing. They believed that they were every bit as qualified to try, to keep trying, until their flying machine took off successfully. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team because he was deemed not good enough. A record company told the Beatles that they would not sign a deal with them because guitar bands were on their way out. The United States patent office made the announcement that they may be closing their doors soon because everything that could ever be invented has already been invented... in 1901!

If you listen to the opinions and voices of alleged authority around you, discouragement is guaranteed. Those who do not listen to anything but that small voice inside of themselves that tells them to press on, keep going, do not let anything discourage you, are the ones that succeed. People who had their backs against the wall and were perceived as not having a chance to win have become some of the very best success stories ever. It is the underdog that we see as amazing and incredible. The ordinary ones who became extraordinary by the circumstances that they endured to achieve greatness. Those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, with every possible opportunity at their fingertips since birth that accomplish something is hardly amazing. They fell backward into it and no one seems to applaud their efforts. The son or daughter of famous Hollywood superstar parents that break into movies hardly makes the news but a long shot waitress who studied acting at nights and got a small break that grabbed attention and went on to become a superstar in her own right is everyone's darling. We applaud these people because it took self esteem, perseverance and determination, undaunted by adversities, to get where they were. We can relate but can we emulate that same degree of

determination? Yes we can, if we develop the gold standard of living, self esteem. Total confidence.

First we need to throw off the misconceptions and most dangerous, the preconceptions that we somehow do not deserve our goals and dreams.

Even if you have specific and clear vision and goals, and a plan of action, if you do not believe yourself worthy of accomplishment, you will unconsciously sabotage yourself and quit before you succeed. People do this to themselves all the time. I have known people so close to success that they were shoe ins for the victory and blew it. Why? Fear mainly. Fear of success, fear of the attention. Fear of how their lives will change. Fear that their friends will feel insecure around them. Fear of the unknown and uncertain. What if's can be powerful but only if you allow it, after all it is your life, not someone else's. You are supposed to be living on your own terms not on the conditions and according to the schedule of anyone else's rating system. When I gained success after years of having things going badly the other way, my closest friends, some I had known for decades, became jealous, resentful and bitter. They actually did feel insecure around me because what I was able to accomplish became a glare against their life of fantasy football, weekend drinking gatherings and self centeredness. Was that my fault? Of course not. Should I have been a better friend and chucked my own dreams to rather sit around with them and pay for another pitcher of beer while sharing old stories? Of course not. My success could have been their own success if they were willing to dream big, act on those dreams and make a few life changes toward accomplishing their goals.

They didn't, I did. Wherever they are today, I wish them well and thank them for choosing to part ways because they unfortunately were holding me back. True friends will applaud your efforts and encourage you, even join you as you both race to victory after victory. Those that mock you, belittle your efforts and expect you to share what you alone sacrificed to

make happen are not your friends. They diminish your self esteem, not support it.

You can not look over your shoulder at what you are not, don't have or have not yet seen happen. You must look forward, never letting uncertainty rattle you. When I created Changes for New Hope, everything I faced was uncertainty. Everything was totally unfamiliar to me including the language, culture and customs in Peru. There was no normal. This became one of the biggest assets to my success though I was unaware of it at the time. Because I did not realize how enormous and difficult the task was before me I was less likely to become intimidated and deterred by it. My total focus was on my vision, everything else was a blur, and actually, still is.

Once you realize that some of the most amazing things ever to be accomplished were achieved by people no smarter, no more advantaged and no more capable than you are right now, you will begin to understand your real value. You owe this to yourself and those around you and to the society and community that begs for good people to emerge with their ideas and vision to make their piece of the world a better place. Doubt equals death, it is too expensive and you can not afford it. Do not let doubt get in between you and your vision of yourself and your abilities. If anybody had reason to doubt herself it is J.K. Rowlings, a single mother on government assistance who wrote the Harry Potter books and became a billionaire. She no longer is a billionaire because, instead of pulling the ladder up behind her, donated many millions of dollars to help women who were in her situation. Doubt would have been destructive to a whole franchise created by the Harry Potter books as well as all the women that would have never received help as a result of her success. Her self esteem had to be in place first to act upon it to become that success. She is no different than you are right now. Your self esteem, self confidence and determination to act upon those attributes will manifest themselves outwardly which will build your self confidence even greater and you will accomplish greater things as you envision them.

Imagine if we all put our talents to work, however humble at the moment, wherever we are in the world, regardless how many or how few we reach, we give our best and most compassionate efforts to make a slice of the world better each day. It becomes a viral effect. Like a slogan or a novel idea. To give you an example, in my project, our motto or slogan is "Haz lo CorrectoDo the Right Thing". It is simple and I share it on all of our banners and posters. It has become ubiquitous and has affected people in positive ways.

The children now look for ways to embody and manifest the message and have become more inspired and encouraged children. People I do not even know shout at me from across streets with that message and show me their wristbands, which I have given out by the thousands, with that message on it. Do I believe that anything is impossible now? Not if it is something I focus on, put massive action into and know that results will be soon manifested. For me it is like breathing, I don't wonder if air will fill my lungs and hesitate. I just do it expecting the result to be there. I no longer wonder what I can do, I know that I am limited only by self doubt and fear which is in contrast to self esteem and self valuation. So as I build my self confidence, doubt, fear, uncertainty vanish. If it works for me, I know it will work or you. If your mind tells you "I can't" be sure to immediately add the word, "yet" to it. You couldn't always walk but you walk today. You couldn't always do your job but once you learned how, you do it almost without thinking about it. Your past experiences are unchangeable. Your past, whatever was in your past, is exactly that, the past. It does not determine your current situation and can not determine your future. If you have failed one hundred times in your past, great, so have I. I learned from what did not work for me, and it showed me what I could be doing differently. I am never going it let my past, unsuccessful efforts tell me that I can never succeed in the future. When I was selling stock offerings in the securities market there was a phrase we always advised our clients about. Past performance is no guarantee for future results. The past does not have any effect or reference

on what your future will be like. You life, to live large and live deliberately means that you will live your life now on your own terms and the way you determine to live, regardless of obstacles and what I call insignificant inconveniences. I look forward to those challenges because today, they reinforce in me what I know I am capable of. I can conquer anything if I know that I can. I live large and deliberately everyday because I am worth it, I deserve it and nothing can take that away from me. I face the same emotions and human senses that you do, as everybody does. The difference between a winner and everybody else is how we choose to deal with it, what we allow it to mean to us, how we let it affect us. Your reaction to your ups and downs in life is entirely up to you. A solid self esteem inside of your heart will carry you through every situation. Obviously, there is so much more that needs to be learned and reinforced in you to build and maintain a confident self esteem level for your happiness. If you become a student of life, always learning as every person who values life as a precious gift does, you will add to this book a series of motivational videos, available for free on YouTube, and other books, go to seminars and fill your head with positive, motivational and inspiring material that will, at the same time, drown out the negativity that seems to be all around us at every turn.

Remember, what you see and hear is what you become. Make sure that you are working on a better you every day. It is not something that you do once and it is finished. It is a daily and consistent activity and growth is a never ending process. Once you accomplish one of your goals, look for the next goal, bigger than before, stretch yourself and erase the lines and frontiers of your comfort zones. When I announced that Changes for New Hope will one day be helping thousands of children in the Peruvian Andes, back in 2009, no one believed it but me. Some people actually worked against me to prevent it from happening. Today, nobody can doubt it, the vision became a reality. And we continue to reach out for even more children, still not knowing how we are going to do it, just that it is going to be accomplished.

Self esteem, my friends, moves mountains. Well, at least it gets me over those steep Andean mountains anyway.

Giving Back

One common quality that every single person that I have ever encountered possessed, who understood the meaning of living large and deliberately, is that they understood the value and importance of compassion in action. It may take a wide variety of forms but people who are victorious and content in life always reach out to others who are less fortunate, selflessly and many times anonymously. I am not suggesting that you empty your bank account, that would be foolish. I am saying however, that your abundance and future additional abundance is universally contingent on an attitude of sharing and compassion. Wealth is another frame of mind, a perception only. I have talked and met with people depressed to the point of suicide because their millions were diminished down to a mere $500,000 and they believed themselves to be poor even though they had more money than 99% of the rest of the people in the world. I have met with people who live in adobe houses with dirt floors who were delighted to share with me a bowl of potatoes and a small piece of chicken with total joy in their eyes. They understood the meaning of true wealth, as I do now. If you believe that we are all one humanity, one world family of people and that boundary lines are manmade, then it makes sense for us to take care of our family and our

earth that we inhabit together. Those that only help their own, sit on top of their accumulations, fold their arms across their chests and look away from the suffering of others are the poorest people I have ever met. They will never believe that they have enough. They will forever be watching and worrying that something or someone will take away what they have. It is a mental condition. A perception that wealth is in the possessions one has.

Having more is the equivalent of being more. It takes a callus individual to watch the suffering of others around them and refuse to share. Inside of themselves they become less of a human being each day. I submit to you that it is impossible to live large and live deliberately and simultaneously neglect those in need when it is within your ability to help them.

I personally have eliminate the word "poverty" out of my vocabulary and writings altogether. It is a made up word that has no specific meaning. If you ask one hundred people the meaning of poverty you will get one hundred different answers. It is like asking people to describe the Atlantic Ocean. It is too vast and broad of a subject to address. Hence it is way too big for anybody to understand how to manage and eliminate it. So why try?

No one can pick up a brick wall, however even a small child can pick up a brick wall if he does it one brick at a time. If we address what people call poverty as a series of circumstances, we can manage the challenge.

Breaking it down, there is mosquito netting that effectively and dramatically reduces the cases of malaria, water filters that clean water in villages and other lack of drinkable water issues, cost effective vitamins that fight anemia where food sources are scarce or inadequate. Anti-parasite medicine fights off parasitic worms for a few cents per person. Birth control education and condoms reduces the effects of AIDS. Books and educational materials in the hands of children and school teachers is the single best and cost effective way to raise children out of destitution. Literacy and job training programs also relieve the issues of inadequacy in families in third world countries effectively. These are just a few ways that people can make

the world a better place. There are other, closer to home, opportunities that deserve your efforts such as homeless shelters. Imagine cleaning out your attic or garage and take clothes that you will never wear again down to a shelter so the less fortunate can stay warm on the streets. Old toys your children will never play with again can be given to an orphanage. Animal shelters, if you love pets, always needs a pair of extra helping hands. If you do not have funds to share, time is something money can not buy. My Dad donated over five gallons of blood over his lifetime to the American Red Cross saving countless lives he would never meet. We can all be heroes if we want to. Of course cash is king. Your name may never be chiseled into a marble slab but the money your generously donate, joined with the compassion of others, will make the world a better place and save the lives in one way or another. When I share of my abundance and since coming to Peru I have shared what was left of my assets and all my time for the benefit of the children of this project, Changes for New Hope. I never felt that I sacrificed anything I shared everything though and I feel that I am a wealthier, happier and more complete human being every day as a result. In fact, I have pledged the majority of the royalties I will receive from this book that you purchased for the direct benefit of these children. I say this not to impress you but to impress upon you the incredible value of giving back, sharing with the less fortunate and by doing so, you enhance your own life, self esteem and personal value as a human being. It does come back to you, I have seen it happen for years now, in many various ways. You also learn to release yourself from the incarceration that says if you give something away, you are a poorer and lesser person because you have less.

Wealth, my friends, is in releasing the notion that it can only be counted in currency. When you see money as a tool, not an end unto itself, and you use that tool wisely and altruistically for the betterment of your human family, you have found the true meaning of living large and living deliberately.

While it should be a well known and widely accepted fact, it remains a

secret among those of us who live in love and beauty in this life. The first step is always the hardest and you may want to start in some small way.

However, I can promise you right now, that if you make this a personal commitment and a 'must' in your life, the benefits that you will reap will be a game changer for you. With the attitude of sharing and not giving it away, you realize how effectively we can eliminate so many of the world's challenges and feel wonderful in the process. I have never been the same person I was ten years ago since devoting my life to this cause.

If you would like to make Changes for New Hope a part of your own experiment in sharing, you can make a contribution through our website at www.changesfornewhope.org. The children have learned the value of gratitude as well and send out thank you letters and cards to our sponsors and supporters.

My Personal Thank You

I mentioned earlier that no one book, video or seminar will ever give you everything that you need, so it is imperative to remember that your journey to life mastery is going to be your responsibility daily. It is up to you to be consistent, persevere and reach for the highest stars that are reaching back to you. Even those that have mastered so many of the qualities that made them great know that we always must be learning, reading, listening and growing. If you are still alive, you still have more to learn and develop.

Stagnation is death in a standing position. I am not going to leave you here.

I am available to you and for you if you have questions or concerns. I am creating a new video program on Youtube to share weekly new updates and encouragements to help people rewire their thinking and become the person they have always wanted to become. Just go to Jim Killon on YouTube and I will meet you there. I am always learning and growing myself. I wrote this book at this stage of my own development to share and reach out to you. Who knows how long any of us will live and I would consider it a tragedy if I died without sharing my victories and successes, thus far, with you. There will be another book, and another. There will be motivational and developmental videos weekly, I promise. My vision for this year (2016) is to reach 3000 children here in Ancash Peru. Currently I am developing a massive used clothing drive to get warm clothing to the pueblos that are in remote mountainous areas and without availability to them. Vitamin Angels has provided a grant for us to receive vitamin A for children under age five in a joint effort to manage anemia and malnutrition. Our anti-parasite program continues to fight worms that are slowing destroying children. Toys, games books, clothing, school supplies, reading glasses, thermal blankets, wind up flashlights, art and craft materials, multiple vitamins and funding has come to us from many compassionate friends who understand the value of sharing. The love grows every day. I did not always understand and I am ever grateful that I do now, that life without passion, half lived is the equivalent of being half dead already. You deserve the very best that life has for you. It is just a matter of believing it and taking hold of your life, on your own terms and embrace the joy that life was always meant to be. Nothing can stop you, not now, not ever again.

Live large my friends, live deliberately! ~~ Hugs from Peru, Jim Killon

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Simple Words to Encourage and Motivate You

During my morning meditations, my mind is perfectly clear and I am open to beautiful thoughts that inspire me and build me up. From a source beyond myself, the Universe, I want to share this with you. I have posted many of these to my social media and complied them here for you to refer to. I hope that you will allow these to serve you as your affirmations, inspirations and motivations. From my love and gratitude for you and to you.... Enjoy.....

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Would you like to experience a game changing, life altering step up in your life? Turn off your television for just one week. Learn who you and your family members are. Find out what your own values and opinions are without the news. Without distraction, understand more about yourself in this week than you discovered in years. I promise you this will be one of the most incredible experiences of your life. **************** If your Today is just a repeat of your Yesterday. If your Tomorrow is just going to be a repeat of Today, what is the point? Life must be filled with progress, every single day. Stretching yourself toward your goals and advances, even small wins are significant if it moves you forward toward a better life. Make some noise with your life, let somebody know you are here and what you feel, dream and care about matters. The alternative is simply a rehearsal for your own death. ******************* People are so afraid to make a wrong decision that they choose to do nothing to better their lives. That is a decision too. People tell me "What if it goes wrong?" I respond, "What if it doesn't?" People tell me "What if I fail?" I tell them, "What if you succeed beyond your wildest imagination and live the life you have always dreamed of?" These same people will blow $100 at the casinos, marry a "beats a blank" spouse, work an "at least it pays the bills" job, drink all weekend with friends who reinforce their misery and wonder why their life sucks. If you designed a life that sucks, accepted no better than C minus choices in life, you got exactly what you allowed for yourself.

Or you can start making changes to design the life of your dreams, today.

Are ...You...Ready? No more safe harbors. It is time to reach for those stars. **********************

I refuse to become a victim of circumstance. I refuse to let chance dictate my future. I refuse to let my history become my destiny. I refuse to allow the negativity of others to enter my victorious thinking. I refuse to accept anything less than the best in my life because I need to be the best I can be if I am to make a positive impact in the lives of the less fortunate. ************************ Happiness is free. It is misery that is expensive. ************************ The R.A.S. or the Reticular Activating System is the part of your brain that allows you to see and hear things that you are looking for. Positive or negative. You notice things because you subconsciously are looking for them. Look for the good, the beautiful, the energizing and the opportunities that you deserve in your life and you will see them all around you. Try it for just one day and see if I am not right. **************************** The best way to take your dreams to your grave is to wait for the perfect time to start living them. There is no perfect time, perfect situation, perfect opportunity. The Pilgrims didn't sail to Boston. They sailed to a desolate wilderness and built Boston. Start Now friends, live large, live deliberately. ****************************** Be specific. Purpose in life is not random. Success is not arbitrary. ******************************* R.I.P. Rest in Peace. This is what is supposed to be written on your tombstone, not your forehead. I once read that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the dirt in your face. Get up, my friends, get out there

and make your life count for something more than making a living, raising a family and waiting for the mailman to bring that Social Security check every month. There will be plenty of time to Rest In Peace after you have made a significant footprint in this world, trust me on this. ******************************* Your life is like a puzzle. All of the pieces that you need for success and happiness are there. Sometimes you just need help rearranging the pieces so that they will make sense and complete the picture. ******************************** Those without original thoughts, ideas, or productive suggestions are enslaved to follow the sheeple in front of them, criticizing those who have taken a stand, changed the world, or voiced an idea that was uniquely apart from the bleating of the ignorant masses. ********************************* Let nothing stop you from your dreams and your vision....nothing. Be specific about what you want to see happen. Take action else it remains just a dream. Activity precedes results.

************************** Familiarity and nostalgia are no substitutes for genuine friendship.

Successful people have a tight, close group of positive friends who understand the value of their visions and goals. *************************** Eliminate the distractions. Nothing can interrupt your life's intense purpose.

You do have a life purpose don't you?

**************************** It is true that charity starts at home. Equally true is that it isn't supposed to stop there. Look around you and find those less fortunate and needy. If you don't know what to do to help them, figure it out. If everybody was watching you would think of something, I know you would. Human suffering is everyone's responsibility. We are one humanity ****************************** Life was never meant to have a finish line. Those that are fully alive are continuously progressing into their next best version of themselves, touching the lives of others as they go. ****************************** Compassion in action, while so natural for some, is an alien concept to others who will never quite, "get it". Imagine if we all would make sure that everybody else is ok. Imagine. ****************************** The biggest obstacle to your own greatness, ironically, is "good enough". A comfortable complacency will rock you to sleep preventing you from becoming the person that you always wished you would have become *************************** Anybody can be ordinary. Ordinary was never anyone's goal in life. Any hung over Neanderthal can be ordinary just by falling out of bed.

Extraordinary things happen to extraordinary people who created extraordinary circumstances. Be extraordinary. ****************************

People who commit to the "Why's" behind their goals and vision will leap over the "What's" that get in their way. People who chase a paycheck, the approval of others or some other 'feel good' will give up as soon as the sun stops shining. They are mere mannequins with a pulse. ***************************** If you follow others, you will never be anything more than your best imitation of them. Live your dreams and make this your very best day yet.

Show yourself and the world what your uniqueness can offer mankind.

Leave behind your own footprint. ****************************** Did you know that cyanide smells like almonds. Copperhead snakes smell like cucumbers. Sometimes toxic people, those who diminish your passion, dreams and goals (perhaps inadvertently) need to be avoided at all costs or you will fail. Familiarity, nostalgia and friendly faces can not be mistaken for sincere concern. What smells pleasant could stop you dead.

******************************* Never accept that you can not do something that may change your life.

What you believe to be true is true for you. It becomes your reality. You don't need anybody else's permission to live the life you want for yourself.

********************** The purpose in life is not to become a money making machine for corporate nods of approval but to leave this world better than you found it, else you are merely a ghost floating through never leaving a single footprint.

************************ Your personal value as a human being can not be determined based on the opinions of others, comparatively how well or poorly others around you are doing, nor the circumstances of the day. The only one who can value you as a human being is you. Consider yourself a lion and you won't act like a helpless kitten any longer ************************* Ok friends, It is time to do it, have it, share it, feel it, be it, heal it, get over it, past it, experience it, taste it, overcome it, enjoy it, love it, become it, and embrace it. Or you can be exactly who and what you were last year, no different. How does that prospect strike you? ************************** I hope your dreams will be put into action, your goals grow legs and your wishes get wheels. Without action, these would only be fantasies. Never doubt your own abilities. Remember, the first guys to build an airplane were just bicycle mechanics with a dream that wouldn't quit. *************************** It is amazing how your brain will fill in the blanks for you when you are determined to achieve an impossible goal. Never tell me again anything is impossible, I can not believe it. I won't accept it. Roger Bannister proved the human machine could run a 4 minute mile was possible. Today girls in high schools are doing it.

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I do not "strive" for excellence. Why? Because that gives me a back door of excuse to slip out of. "Well, at least I tried". I accept excellence as my normal operating mode now. **************************** No one ever tripped over success. They pursued it, grabbed it with both hands and made it work. Sometimes with naysayers on both sides of them.

Sometimes with half-hearted well wishers. But it is the people that focus on that goal with a burning desire to succeed, the ones who never forget why they started their journey in the first place, that step into a special place in life that few will ever know. ****************************** I gave myself permission. What a liberating feeling that was. I must do this more often. ****************************** Define yourself. Define your place in the world. What footprint your existence on this bright blue orb will be left behind. If you don't know who you are, someone else will surely tell you and you might not like what you hear. Define yourself. ******************************* Nothing changes if you change nothing. People who try their best to accomplish a goal, most often accomplish their goals. It's hardly a miracle, just common sense, blended with passion and tenacity. ******************************* It would be a wonderful thing if the entire world was just like me. Everyone looked like me, talked like me, liked the same foods, music, jokes, cars, and

pets that I like, every plate of food was cooked exactly the way I liked it, lights were always green for me and everybody smiled looking at me. I'd love it if everyone agreed with everything I say and did everything I wanted them to do. BUT because I am only SHARING this big blue orb with 7 billion other very different people, I need to be tolerant of those differences, love those that are different and unusual, accept what I can not change, enjoy the variations, challenges and nuances that life tosses at me. It is all part of life's little adventure ********************************* If they can do it, that means that it can be done. Therefore, I can do it too.

And so can you! People get jammed up with the "hows" which always unfolds to reveal itself in time. The passion to achieve the goal with the "no matter what" attitude, to do what others won't, to clearly focus on what others are blind to and to have the courage to face every obstacle with confidence is all you need to be victorious. ************************************ People get pretty bent out of shape about everything from what is on a flag, ownership of guns, outrageous university loans, the 1%, politics, police protection or lack thereof, storms heading their way, incidents, accidents, hints and allegations. No wonder people are having heart attacks, nervous conditions, gulping down pills to calm themselves, living in fear and anxieties. Come up for air people, this is your life you are supposed to be living. You only get one shot at this and you are burying yourself in stuff that you either can't change or doesn't matter now or won't in 5 years anyway. Take 5 minutes, (yes you can spare it) and close your eyes and breathe deeply and slowly. Reset your energy rhythms and decide what really matters to you in your life. Love, encouragement, peace in your heart, the people around you who are around you because you are wonderful. Let the good stuff matter to you as much as the stuff that tries to absorb you. If you still want to go nuts about the world around you, go ahead, but at least now you will have seen that you had another option.

************************ Being able to answer 2 questions every day, "What matters and What doesn't" is what keeps me focused and energized every day. *************************** Fear only exists in your mind. To allow it to paralyze your dreams is a tragedy. To use it as an excuse not to strive for your success is unconscionable. *************************** It's not those who get along by going along that change the world. It's not those who fear being different and strive so hard to blend into a sea of people indistinguishably that leaves behind a footprint, It is the person who stands up tall and shares the unpopular idea or the unique way to see the world. It is the ones who live with love for humanity, particularly for the vulnerable, who won't allow their voice to go unheard, their stories untold or their visions to go unrealized. These are the people that you had better keep an eye on because the trails they blaze are the ones that will redefine our humanity and purpose for living. ***************************** If you want to see the impossible accomplished, attempt the impossible. ***************************** I have yet to meet a woman who was not my equal. ***************************** Empathy without action is apathy.

**************************** A simple idea, put into action is the reason why we fly, drive cars instead of ride horses, can communicate to the world on computers, have medicines that made diseases of the past vanish, have all the public knowledge of the entire world in the palms of our hand and empower ourselves. What's your best single idea yet to be put into action? *************************** The reason so many unnamed fears people have are unnamed is because fear doesn't actually exist, except in your own mind. You can always change your mind. Has anybody ever gone to the store and bought a pound of fear? *************************** Earlier this week, I flew over 12 countries in 2 continents. Looking down, I did not see the lines that divide the countries. They were not in different colors like you see on maps. Everybody on the plane was sitting like eggs in a carton all wishing for a safe landing. It reinforced the truth that we are all one humanity, one people, regardless of social status, color of our skin, religion or ideologies. We will never see each other again, never meet all those people that we flew over but we are all still together on this circling blue orb regardless of how passionately we create imaginary lines between the various segments of humanity. ****************************** You know what happens when all you do is think about it? Nothing. ****************************** It is not always as easy as it looks, but if you have vision and passion, it is always worth the effort.

**************************** When lines are drawn between people, arbitrary lines at that, then the Us vs. Them thinking begins to develop. Rights and wrongs. When people get tangled up in those lines, they are inevitably strangled. No one who believes and practices tolerance and love for all humanity ever suffered the inner turmoil that these mental gymnasts endure daily. **************************** Never give up on your dreams. Even when the going is tough. Do you know what White Star Lines was doing the day after the Titanic sunk? Selling tickets to passengers for the next cruise **************************** Interesting, If the existence of the earth was compressed into one year, humankind would appear on day 365 at 11:58pm. Look what we, as a human race, have done to, for and against each other and the earth itself. Is it too late to change course before we annihilate ourselves? Can we care, share and repair? **************************** It is ludicrous to wait for a mountain to erode. Or for changes to happen. Changes do not just happen, they are made to happen. Great things happen when they are ignited and people's awareness is raised. Wishing upon a star is never a solution, unless you are a Disney character. **************************** Knowledge is knowing how to strike a match, wisdom is knowing when to blow it out. **************************** I was comfortable in an environment that was familiar to me. I became shackled with what was like me, spoke my language, was part of my culture and looked like me. When I stepped outside of those narrow lines, life exploded in front of me like

a massive firework display of enlightenment and love. I can never go back. I hope you experience this too and decide to live large and live deliberately. ****************************** I never gave up trying. I gave up quitting. That was when life became amazing. ****************************** If someone else has accomplished it already then it can be done. Never envy, instead, emulate. Then exceed the previous accomplishment. ******************************

People can only congratulate you on your actions. Nobody knows what you wish you would have accomplished. ******************************* You already know that there are 1000 reasons why it won't work. But there are also 10,000 reasons why it will work. Success then, is just a matter of focus isn't it? ************************* "Nobody is perfect" is not an excuse to deliberately screw up. "I'm sorry" is not the social cure all for those screw ups. You really need to be the best that you can be and do the best you know to do. After all, who wants to live a bare minimal existence? *************************

I am gratefully, passionately, indescribably Alive! Nothing is different, nothing has remarkably changed. I am just determined to live in this mode every day, without excuse, without regret and without retreat. And you can too! ***********************

A friend of mine died today. Not all at once, because then we'd have to give him a funeral. But he died a little piece at a time. First his values, then his self esteem, his dreams went after that. His joy then passed from him and his ambition to look forward to another day faded. All that was left was a shell of the man I once knew, walking, breathing, but as dead as a carcass on the side of the mountainside. So sad. **************************** Determined action behind any decision or good intention makes the difference between incredible results and simply wishing upon a star. **************************** Thoughts become things. The alienation of your thoughts become lines dividing you from others that are different from you. When the differences become more apparent, the lines are not enough and we build walls. When the different people can still be seen on the other side of the wall we build enclosures and become hermits, away from the differences that we saw in others. How right, how superior do we really need to be? Aren't we all one human race? One people and our differences are part of that humanity.

***************************** Your comfort zone is just a starting point. It was never intended to be a permanent residence. Let's get moving on those dreams.... **************************** No one ever had to apologize for doing their best. ****************************

Step back, take a second look at it and see if your plan of action looks as good a second time. If it does, you are unstoppable. **************************** You are unique and unlike anyone else in the world. That's why you are so different and that is a Very Good thing. **************************** Touch a life today, any life, it could be the life of a dog, Make something better happen around you. Watch how your own feelings and awareness will change within you. Sharing, my friends, is what makes each of us the humans we were intended to be. ***************************** Invite- peace into your life. -Invite- love, harmony, compassion and happiness into your life. It is a simple matter of allowing it to happen for you. What isn´t part of this will slip off of you like a shadow.... ***************************** The menu is not the meal, the thought is not the deed and the prayers are not the deliverance. Roll up your sleeves and make a difference where you can. Imagine if we all did just a little to make positive changes, if only for today.... ************************* Have you tried everything? Don´t say you can´t, it won´t work or it is impossible until you have tried everything. If you don´t have a good idea, start with a bad idea and improve on it. *************************

Say what you think. Express yourself in ways that will inspire others to do the same. Don't be afraid. Nobody is going to kill you and eat you. ************************* Love is formless, boundless and without frontiers. Love reaches through and touches on every level. Or it is only a word. ************************** So many people live their lives like a three day old newspaper re-reading everything and missing the action of today. Old newspapers belong at the bottom of a kitty litter box. *************************** Satisfaction is only for those who are finished dreaming, done hoping and who have surrendered their passion to reach out for what can be..... *************************** Freedom makes you free. Asking for permission to be free is not freedom. *************************** Unless you are allowing yourself to be fully alive, you are undead. Missing everything that is real that life could be for you but not polite enough to go lay down somewhere just yet. How long do you really want to exist in a state of just putting one foot in front of the other? Some do it for 80 years. Make a conscious effort to break out of that orbit. Do it today, for yourself. And those who love you. *****************************

Gratitude is not a fragile thing. In fact it is one of the strongest forces your life will ever know. ****************************** If the sign says "Wet Paint" you know not to touch it. If the label says, "Poison" you know not to drink it. If thoughts or memories are toxic to you, same rules and common sense applies. ***************************** You know why you don't get wet looking at fish in an aquarium? The same thing applies when looking at your challenges in life, keep a barrier between your challenges and your emotions. ****************************** Love yourself first and completely. What you share with others is an extension of the love that is rooted within you, full and all encompassing.

Those who come into your life, or move on in their own journey doesn't change the love that is in you, that is you. ***************************** Standing in front of an open door staring at it and never going through it and staring at a brick wall is identical. When the door of opportunity swings open for you, take the step. You will never know what´s on the other side if you never explore.

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What you see and hear, you become. We become our environment, it s just that simple. Whether you are aware or not. It is happening. ************************** Have you noticed whenever you look for a problem you always have one but when you look for a solution, you always find one? ************************* Say it only if you mean it, promise it only if you intend to do it, start it only if you intend to finish it and love it only if you intend to keep it. Life becomes beautifully simple and you can remain happy. ************************* A better life is created by making small changes, everyday. You can't pick up a brick wall but you can lift it one a brick at a time. ************************** There can be no heroes without there first being villains. There can be no solutions without there first being challenges which makes you reach deep within yourself to find the heroism that will save the day. ************************* Your life is like a game of chess. You can stare at the board all day long but until you make a move, you can't win the game. ************************* If you plant an apple seed, you know an apple tree is going to sprout up. You may not know how many branches it will have or how many apples it will bear but no doubt, you will have an apple tree. Life is just like that.

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Never wait for it to happen, it may never happen. Make it happen, blaze the trail, you are more than capable, you just may not know it yet. ************************* Stumbling blocks? If you are facing one right now, be grateful for two reasons. It landed in front of you not on top of you. And now you have something to climb on top of so that you can see farther than you ever could before. *************************** Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. *************************** Talent? Putting your foot down without crushing toes, now that is talent. ************************** No one ever got full eating an "I wish" sandwich. Dream big but then get your feet and hands moving. The only thing that ever fell out of the sky into your lap was from an overhead bird. **********************

Mediocrity is inertia, procrastination and apathy swirled into a mix that produces nothing. Don't let that happen to you. You are so much better than that. Whatever you do today, make it count! ********************** Words are powerful. Words are power.

********************** For those who do not accept limitations, relationships grow, success becomes certain, profound happiness is assured and what was once considered bridges too far to cross shrink in rear view mirrors. *********************** Remember when you are facing a challenge, that the challenge has to face you too. And you are bigger. ********************** There is two ways to get a hot air balloon to go higher... blast it with more fire or toss away the sandbags that were holding you down. **********************

You just never know what might come your way in life. One thing is for certain though, what you focus your attention on is going to be a preview of what's heading your way. ********************* On your wall is a light switch. Only one, not two. When you turn on the light, you don't need to turn off the darkness. Life is exactly like that too. Live large my friends... live deliberately. ********************* You never know how your sparks will create a fire in other´s lives, so make lots of them and warm yourself in the glow of their success and accomplishments. Be genuinely happy when others succeed as much as your own. **********************

Now is when you are, Here is where you are. Right here and right now is when and where you can make the difference you have been wanting and waiting for. *********************** Right here, right now, we celebrate the incredible power of... Thank You ********************* If everyone spent just 10 minutes a day helping to make someone else´s day better.... what a wonderful world... *********************

Everybody starts at the starting line...not everybody finishes at the finish line.

Give a nudge of encouragement to those struggling to get there. Tomorrow it may be you needing that nudge from them. ********************** Give yourself full credit for every accomplishment however humble, it is something to be proud of. Then, reach for the next star. ********************** Some people are in your life to be booster rockets on your journey through life. They get you off the ground and take you higher, then drop off. That was their intended purpose. Others are astronauts sitting beside you and will be with you through the whole journey. It is important to be grateful for both. It is equally important not to confuse one with the other. ********************** It´s ok not to be everybody´s best friend. You can never be anyway, so why set yourself up for that disappointment. Just be you. Those who can appreciate you, as you are, will migrate your way. Those are your friends. **********************

We train people how to treat us by letting them observe how we treat ourselves. ********************** It´s never enough to speak the words to them. Until they see it, feel it, experience it for themselves, it will never be real for them. ********************** Don´t drink other people´s poisons. It could kill you like it is killing them

********************** The Clock is ticking. Now isn't going to last forever. It isn't going to last past dinner tonight. That idea you have, that person you need to tell that you are sorry or that you love them, that special "conversation" you have been putting off, this would be a great time to jump in and put. ********************** Just do your best. It's not necessary to distract yourself to address those who throw stones. Your silence and continued success swings the glare of scrutiny upon them. ********************** The goodness that you see in others is possible because what you see is a reflection of the goodness that is within you.... ********************** All sorts of amazing things are about to happen in your life. Just expect it. No one is at the top of the totem pole just yet. There is so much more to learn and experience that will blow you away. Remember when you were 4?

Everything was amazing and fun and new and exciting. Whatever you have to do to regain that sense of wonder, do it, and expect life to be very good to you.

********************** You are a complete and whole person right now. No one is a half person.

Everything that you need to succeed selflessly already exists within you.

Once you believe that in the core of your being, things start to happen. They happen BIG!. ********************** Things you plan don´t always happen and things that happen you don´t always plan. Allowing flexibility in your life is a key element to your happiness. ********************** What you own, the things that you just GOT to have, actually own you. The things that people will do to get what they want is terrifying when you look at it from the outside. How much is enough? Where is the finish line? I have a fraction now of what I had 5 years ago and I have never been richer. When you realize that wealth isn´t always measured in dollars and cents, and touching the lives of others who can do nothing for you in return is one of the most enriching experiences anyone could imagine. Simplicity has a beauty, unique, pure and perfect. ********************** Some of the finest human beings that I have ever met had one common quality, they put others ahead of themselves. ********************** Never give too much credence to a dollar´s worth of advise that comes from people who give a nickel´s worth of commitment. ********************** I never gave up trying, I gave up quitting....life became empowering right after that.

********************** Tolerance does not necessarily mean acceptance. Kindness doesn't necessary indicate weakness and silence does not necessarily imply agreement. ********************** In an "I can´t believe I am seeing this" moment, I saw a one armed gardener.

He was whacking away with his little pick, plucking weeds and all. What prompted a man with one arm to become a gardener is beyond me, but it just goes to show you that you can´t stop someone that won´t be stopped. Think about that next time you are waiting for situations to become perfect before you dare to live your dreams. A one armed gardener.... One of my personal heroes ********************** When you play chess, it isn´t enough to stare at the board hoping for a great move to happen. You have to reach deep within yourself and find the solution, and make the move. When you do it enough times, you become a winner. There is no better feeling than being a winner. Life is just like that.

Let´s all be winners. **********************

Failures do not show you what you are, they simply show you what you are not. Your successes and victories show you what you are.

********************** When you really think about it, everything in your life has been beneficial in one way or another. Either to lead you to a good place where you are now or prod you away from the things that no longer served you well. **********************

A diamond is created when a lump of coal is under extreme pressure and heat and, over time, it is transformed into something precious. The experiences of life can either crush you or make you into a diamond. Shine brightly my friends. ********************** It's not success that is elusive or fragile but failure. Those who have succeeded in reaching their goals have found a deep sense of satisfaction and inner joy in their accomplishments that make it easier to reach their next goal.

To accept defeat in any form and find every reason why it won't work creates a debility inside of a person, crippling them from the inside out. ********************** Victim or victor, either way you will face adversities. Whether you fall as a victim or rise as a victor depends on how much attention and power you give to your adversities. The choice is yours, it always was. ********************** Fear nothing. The roaring lion in the jungle far away may only be a purring kitty with a big mouth and an enormous ego. ********************** No baseball player hit a home run ever time at bat, not superstar Cal Ripken Jr., not your kid in little league. There are more strike outs than home runs, but what made Cal great, your kid a little slugger, or you in your life’s endeavors, is the tenacity to keep swinging at whatever gets pitched at you.

Practice to become better, make no excuses, and keep swinging. ********************** A bricklayer builds things out of bricks. He could build a house, a missile silo, or an orphanage. It's up to the bricklayer how he lays the bricks. Your bricks are your thoughts and ideas. What are you building today? **********************

Take the chance, share a dream, risk ridicule, speak your heart, express yourself, touch a life, say no when you have to and yes when you want to, but make a mark in the world somewhere. ********************** Act NOW. If you think about it too long, you will talk yourself out of it, which is the same thing as doing nothing. After all, who wants to start a story with, ”Hey guess what I almost did today?” ********************** I would sooner play hopscotch in a landmine field than to ignore the lessons of everyday life. There may be no diploma, but it is quite an education. ********************** Don't let the 100 reasons to give up, quit or get upset, blind you to the 1000 reasons to try again, love once more and allow the beautiful parts of life to come into your heart. Your Very Best Day has not happened yet. ********************** You can´t use cement to repair a sand castle. It just doesn´t work. ********************** Do you have adversaries? We all do. The secret to not letting them affect you is to fly higher than they can reach. ********************** Remember, even Picasso wasn't a Picasso until he became a Picasso. ********************** Anybody can have a great day when everything is going your way. If your day has been lifted right out of a Disney movie, you can hardly miss. The neat trick is to learn how to find happiness when you are up to your neck in adversities and challenges. Then you are a winner.

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Jim Killon can be contacted at www.changesfornewhope.org and on Facebook under his own name. Follow his project, Changes for New hope on our Facebook page as well for updates and news about the childen.

About The Author Jim Killon is happily living in the Peruvian Andes for the past seven years as of this writing. His minimalist lifestyle is refreshing and has given him a perspective on what is most important in life. His project, Changes for New Hope grows each year to reach more children in destitution and share ways and materials to lift them out of their despair. Touching lives in positive ways and making this piece of the world that he can touch a better place is a fulfillment that compares with nothing else. Jim Killon seeks daily to Live Large and Live Deliberately.