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Archives For October 2013

It seemed like a miracle

Brad Stanton —  October 28, 2013 — 1 Comment

So here is another short piece that I hope will motivate you to achieve great things in life. I’ll tell you the moral of the story at the end.

English: Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle ...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I played defensive tackle in high school football and wondered what it would be like to line up against a pro football player.  One of our coaches had played several years of pro football and one day he decided to show me a few things.

There I was, in full football gear, helmet, shoulder pads, and all the rest. He didn’t have any of that stuff, so I felt a little uncomfortable squaring off against him. I said “Coach, you’re not wearing a helmet or pads….”

He said “I won’t need them.” I thought that seemed a little presumptuous of him. But I certainly respected his football ability.

Quickness off the line is everything in football. Speed is important, but for linemen who sometimes don’t run more than a few yards on each play, quickness is essential. Strength is important too, of course. I wasn’t the best player on the team by any means, but I was very quick. At least, I thought I was.

But what happened next seemed surreal. It just didn’t seem possible. When the ball was snapped, the coach disappeared into thin air! Well, not literally, but it seemed like it. I had never seen anything like it in all my life. He was so quick that it seemed like he disappeared and after I turned around, he reappeared behind me.

Do you ever hear of someone getting a promotion at work and people say something like “Who did he pay off for that promotion?” They seem to think it is not possible that the person worked much harder than other people to get ahead.

The moral of the story: Just like what that coach did seemed impossible, sometimes it seems unbelievable that people work twice as hard as others to get a promotion. The speed of my coach was unbelievable, but I’m sure he worked hour after hour, month after month, year after year to achieve that.

Keep working hard and enjoying your work. People who enjoy their work can get more work done much more easily than those who don’t like their work. If you really give it your best day after day, month after month, year after year, good things will happen.

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1st step to achieve goals: believe it!

Brad Stanton —  October 26, 2013 — 4 Comments

“If you believe you can, or believe you can’t, either way you are right.” Henry Ford

President George W. Bush meets with California...

President George W. Bush meets with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. 2003 White House photo by Eric Draper. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ford is saying the same thing that many of the greatest achievers say, that if you believe you can do something, you can. If you are a pessimist and think you can’t do something, you will find that you can’t do it. If you want to lose weight, be a better parent, get out of debt, or anything else, faith helps.

When I read about Henry Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, I find that they are men of incredible faith. I’m talking about having faith that they can achieve their dreams.

Arnold wrote about faith in his book “Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder.” He said he visualized his muscles growing bigger, and that through visualizing, it actually made them bigger. Of course he spent hours a day in the gym lifting weights, too.

Visualizing with faith can do amazing things to our subconscious mind. I won’t go into the psychology of it, because that gets boring, but suffice it to say that many people who have accomplished great things in life say that faith is the power that helped them accomplish their dreams, and visualizing success helps enormously.

Jack Canfield, who had sold over 100,000 books and is incredibly wealthy from it, said that visualization helped him muster the faith he needed to sell books. Not only that, he mentions educators who took a school with a very high dropout rate and turned it into a school with a very high graduation rate by asking the students to visualize themselves going to college. In fact they did it every day at the beginning of class for a few moments. After visualizing it over and over, the students began to believe that they could do what they originally thought was impossible. They began to get excited about it, and that gave them the energy they needed to study and work hard.

A man who accomplished amazing things and is famous in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions and holy books is Moses.

Moses was just one man, but he did absolutely amazing things. He walked into the king’s palace and demanded that the king (Pharaoh) release millions of Hebrew slaves. Well, of course Pharaoh didn’t like that idea, because one of the reasons that his nation was among the most wealthy and powerful nations on earth was that he had millions of slaves who worked hard and got paid almost nothing.

Moses went with Aaron but Moses did all the talking. He brought an ordinary stick, but with that stick he did incredible miracles. Even to this day around the word many magicians still use magic wands (sticks).

You may not believe that he performed miracles, or that the magicians in the king’s court also did the same magic, but you have to admit, Moses did a pretty amazing thing. He convinced Pharaoh to let the people go free…eventually. Moses was able to do this because he had faith. He had faith that God would make a way for him when it seemed impossible to do what he wanted to do, what he was told to do.

I firmly believe that God did not want the Hebrews to be enslaved for 400 years in Egypt; I believe he asked many people to free the slaves, but those people didn’t have the faith to do it. They didn’t have the faith to walk into the king’s palace and make the request. Yes, I know not many agree with me on this, in fact maybe I’m the only one.

It is just too hard for some people to believe that there is an all-powerful God in heaven who loves them very, very much. But the good book says that not only does God love you and dote on you, he knows everything about you. He even knows how many hairs are on your head. He knows all your problems and knows what you will do before you do it. He has a fantastic plan for your life and knows that you will take many wrong turns in life, but he is smart enough to engineer the life plan to work in spite of the wrong things you do.

There are millions of street children in the world. On December 16, I will fly to Manila to help bring hope and the necessities of life to street children. Would you like to help me?

http://www.travel4j.com/donate.html

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Street children part 4

Brad Stanton —  October 23, 2013 — Leave a comment

Begging professional

Begging professional (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A high school boy was told by a counselor that he wasn’t very smart and should take the lowest level job available after high school. So he did. He worked in a factory at the lowest level year after year for many years.

Finally, the factory he worked in had to shut their doors and laid everyone off. The young man applied at another company in town. As part of the application process he was required to take an IQ test. When the results of the test came back he was shocked. He scored higher on the test than anyone in the 63 year history of the company. He was actually a genius.

He went on to start his own company and invented two useful products which each made a lot of money. All of this happened because he had confidence that he could accomplish his goals.

His talent was IQ, but what talent do you have that you have not discovered yet? Some experts consider EQ more important that IQ as a determinate of success in life. EQ stands for Emotional Quotient.

It has been found that people who have a burning desire to accomplish a task are more likely to succeed at it than someone who might have a higher IQ, with no desire to succeed.

Some people are highly successful at their jobs because they love people. They love people so much that others are drawn to them and they can sell just about anything to anyone. Others have a flair for creating beautiful paintings, interior decorating, lovely poems or stories or beautiful music. Some people have a burning desire to play a sport, and make a living doing what they love to do.

The moral of the story about the high school boy is that someone gave him confidence. Just think of the number of children that could accomplish much more if they had someone to give them confidence. Your children are your future, do you speak confidence into them? No one else can do it as well as you can if you are their parents.

There are millions of street children in the world. On December 16, I will fly to Manila to help bring hope and the necessities of life to street children. Would you like to help me?

http://www.travel4j.com/donate.html

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Listen

Brad Stanton —  October 20, 2013 — 4 Comments

Morse Code Straight Key J-38

Morse Code Straight Key J-38 (Photo credit: Whiskeygonebad)

Back when the telegraph was the was the fastest method of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse Code operator.

Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the office address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, busy office filled with noise and clatter, including the sound of the telegraph in the background. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office. The young man filled out his form and sat down with the seven other applicants in the waiting area.

After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They assumed that the young man who went into the office made a mistake and would be disqualified.
Within a few minutes, however, the employer escorted the young man out of the office and said to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has just been filled.”

The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and one spoke up saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t understand. He was the last to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair!”

The employer said, “I’m sorry, but all the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse Code: ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. The job is his.”

We live in a world that is full of busyness and clatter, like that office. People are distracted and unable to hear the still, small voice of God as He speaks in creation, in the Scriptures, or in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Are you tuned in to God’s voice? Do you hear Him when He speaks to you? Are you listening? “This is my Son, whom I love . . . Listen to Him!”

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Street children part 3

Brad Stanton —  October 18, 2013 — 6 Comments

Vietnam Saigon Child in the Street

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Remember when you were young and idealistic? You probably believed that you could change the world. Perhaps you spoke passionately about causes you believe in and you were optimistic about your chances of success. The world just needed a little coaxing. But as the years went by, you realized that the world is a much bigger place that you imagined—full of people who hold opposing views. Thus, you may have settled into a routine lifestyle and concerned yourself only with the challenges of everyday life.

If that sounds like you, it’s time to yank yourself up and shake yourself around. It’s time to reclaim your passion, refocus yourself mentally, and go back to the business of world changing. Sure it’s daunting, seems impossible. But you’ve got more going for you than you had back in your younger days. You’re wiser, more experienced, less likely to be overwhelmed by unexpected challenges.

Start simply by doing something, anything—big or small—that has the potential to make a difference in even one life. By now, you probably realize that changing one life changes the world as a whole. So choose something you care about , and make it a place to begin.

No matter what you settle on, a group probably already exists from politics, to taking care of the environment, to literacy, there are plenty of choices. Find a group who advocates a position you believe in and enter in. 

Jesus once said that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed-the smallest of all seeds. It eventually produces a plant that is larger than all the other plants in the garden. So don’t worry about the size of your contribution—just do what you can and expect God to make it count. By the time you reach retirement, you’ll be in the habit of changing the world.”

From the book 101 Things You Should do Before You Retire page 61 Stage a Revolution

Remember the story of the father and son walking along the beach? They saw thousands of star fish stranded on the beach, waiting to die. The father walked up to a star fish and picked it up. He looked at it and then threw it back into the ocean.

“Dad, there are thousands of them, there is no way we can save them all. There is nothing we can do to make a difference!”

The father replied, “It made a difference to that one.”

Manila Street Children

Manila Street Children (Photo credit: ibarra_svd)

When I read about the millions of street children around the world I feel that there are too many of them, I just can’t make a difference. But we can make a difference to some of them.

I’m leaving December 16 to fly to Manila to help street children. Want to help? http://travel4j.com/donate.html

I will meet the principal of a high school who is in the position to know a lot about helping children.

It seems all the great masters taught us that it is actually more joyful to give than to receive.

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