Geared for Growth

I'm fortunate to be part of a group of entrepreneurial people that are exposed on a daily basis to the thoughts and revelations of the masterminds of personal global development on various levels.  If you haven't a clue what I'm writing about, then all I can ask is that you hang in there.  It could be life altering.

I'm currently reading Geared for Growth - The 10 Principles for Reaching Your Potential by John C. Maxwell and Jim Dornan.  You won't find this hardback book on the open market, it doesn't even have an ISBN.  It cost me only $20, quite a deal when you consider the content and that it is a hardback.

It's full of illuminating nuggets, some from the writers themselves and others quotes from eminent people from the past.  This blog is going to be full of quotes.

"The great American preacher Dwight L. Moody" said 'If I had to kick the person most responsible for my problems, I couldn't sit down for a week.'  We need to start with ourselves because we are so often the problem."

"Whether you are trying to lose weight, build a business, build a marriage, raise a child, overcome a bad habit or resolve a depression, it is done the same way: one step at a time.  And the earlier you begin the more steps you can accumulate."

"While it's true that the later you start, the more urgency you feel, the good news is that it's never too late - as this poem illustrates:
Though you cannot go back
And make a new start, my friend,
You can start from now,
And make a brand new end!

"How do you get started with the end in view? First, find your passion.  A passion, a goal that you feel strongly about, gives you energy.  This is the "end" that you want to keep in view.  You can find your passion by asking three questions:
What do I care about?
What are my gifts?
Who do I know who is successful in these areas, who can mentor me?"

I like the paragraph on page 21 where John Maxwell talks about so many people refusing to move ahead until everything is perfect.  As he says, this is really just another excuse or fear masquerading as a reason.  You need to focus on the rewards.

Never having analysed the word "extraordinary" before reading this book meant that the fact there are only 5 letters difference between ordinary and extraordinary had escaped my attention.  Extra means just a little bit more.  Note the word 'little'.  Not a lot, not a whole heap, not a mountain - but a little bit.

"If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had help getting there!"  Why do I love it says John Maxwell, "Because I'm a turtle on a fencepost.  I know that I didn't get to where I am in life on my own.  I'm just not that smart, gifted or fast.  The truth is that those who reach 'extraordinary' receive help from others to get there".  And that's what I am getting by having access to this book and to those who wrote it.

As a man thinketh, so is he.  "It's surprisingly easy to travel through life without thinking much.  But that path doesn't lead to success.  Simply put, your mind will give you back exactly what you put into it.  It's impossible to harvest extraordinary achievement without also sowing the seeds for it in your mind.  Earl Nightengale said 'You are and you become what you think about.'"

I'll end with a quote by Louis Armstrong "There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." Make 2012 YOUR year, the year you realise that you don't know what you don't know.

Conscious Evolution ....................

I'm tired of live cattle exports, of Halal, of ritual killing etc etc etc.  For God's sake what sort of world do we live in?  If we can't care properly for the animals we raise and consume then what chance do our domestic animals and our children have of having their needs met?  If you wonder how I can include our children in the equation then you're completely missing the point.

Every act that we perform or condone affects us spiritually and we just can't argue with that, it's the universal law ... the way we're made ... it's the system.  We have to grow up and take responsibility for our own actions.

If Holland can stop ritual killing in their abattoirs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13947163) then so can anyone else, it's just needs the entire system of raising the animals and turning them into meat to change.  We're being Luddites if we think any system can continue the same indefinitely.   Read Conscious Evolution by Barbara Max Hubbard -
http://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Evolution-Awakening-Social-Potential/dp/1577310160

To the Queen!

"Those who write, erroneously, about the Queen's Birthday holiday being “an 
unnecessary link to the imperialist past “(Age 13/6/11) obviously know 
little about our current constitutional arrangements and care nothing for 
the will of the Australian people who, in 1999, voted to retain the monarchy 
with the Queen as our head of state and sovereign.

The Monarch's Official Birthday holiday is Australia's first and oldest 
holiday, having been so declared by Captain Arthur Phillip in June 1788, to 
celebrate the actual birthday of King George III.

It is held in the second week of June in all States other than Western 
Australia (which celebrates it in September/October) to suit an appropriate 
cycle of national holidays.

As long as Australia remains a constitutional monarchy, it is highly 
appropriate and fitting that we honour the Queen of Australia by celebrating 
Her Majesty's Official Birthday. 

Rather than whinging about the holiday, republicans should firstly put 
forward the detail of the increasingly illusive model they propose for us.

Philip Benwell
National Chair
Australian Monarchist League"
0419 417 097

Live Export

So the Government has today finally bowed to public opinion and banned live cattle export to Indonesia for 6 months while they sort out an Indonesian solution. 

Now Sen Barnaby Joyce is saying that it will damage relations with Indonesia!  Excuse me while I get the fingers out of my throat - the Indonesians have damaged the relations, not us. 

Furthermore it is said by someone (?) that beef farmers in the north are going to need compensation for loss of income.  Another 'Excuse me" required here.  If they were prepared to put so many eggs in one basket and that basket being making money from the suffering of their cattle, then they were in the wrong business in the first place.  And don't tell me that they thought the MLC levy was protecting their cattle, that's putting complacency ahead of common sense. 

Now let's get live export of all meat animals banned to all countries, they don't need to endure that trip never mind the end they might endure.

Support local business they say - I've been trying to!

I was looking for a new washing machine this morning and went into all 3 electrical shops in Atherton.  In the last one I was looking at the machines on display when a male assistant with a cup of coffee in hand and not dressed for business I might add, crossed my path and asked if he could help.  I asked the price on one of the machines that didn't have a ticket on it.  Off he went with coffee in hand and returned with coffee in hand and the price.  To deliver the machine 18klms was going to cost me what amounted to 8% of the purchase price and no flexibility on delivery day which meant I'd have to wait a week!  Give me a break.

Prior to visiting this electrical emporium I went into a home decor shop that Louise had told me to go into to look at a wooden sign she knew I'd like.  An assistant approached me and I said why I was there.  "We had 2 of those", she said "and we've sold both".  As she didn't move away or offer anything else I asked her if it was possible to get any more.  She went to ask the owner of the shop.  She said that she could get some more but not just one!  Think about it woman - you bought 2 on spec at a gift show down south and sold them both- now you aren't prepared to order one for me and one to sell.  It defies the imagination what was going on in her head but it wasn't business.

I didn't meet one person working in a shop today that I would invite to join our business, they either/all had no sense of dress, no sense of service and no idea of how to behave with any sort of demeanour I would find acceptable.

Grumpy Old Woman is now back home and still looking for a washing machine.  As for the sign - I'll save the $89 it would have cost me and make my own.

Am I just old fashioned?

When I was growing up it was customary and good manners to thank people for presents.  This was usually done in the form of a letter even if the present had been given face to face.  The same went for meals at somebody's house, it was also customary to write a thank you note.

It all seems to have gone by the board, we're all so obsessed with ourselves that we don't think of others anymore.  I'm tired of giving presents to people that don't even acknowledge that they've received them.  I don't expect recipients to like everything I give them but I try so hard to get the right thing that the least they could do would be to acknowledge receipt thereof.

Recently an elderly acquaintance was kind enough to give me some highly perfumed ginger plants and cut flowers, the flowers are bright yellow and absolutely enormous.  I love ginger plants of all sorts so I wrote her a thank you card and posted it.  Choosing to post it was also a deliberate act, to show that I appreciated her kindness enough to buy a stamp.  I could easily have just put it in her mailbox as it was as close as the post office anyway.  I'm not saying any of this to big note myself, just to point out that common courtesy is thinking of how others will react.

A few weeks later she left some different gingers on my doorstep when we were out and left a note thanking me for the card and said old fashioned and how lovely it was to have done that.  I really appreciated knowing that I had pleased her in return for the pleasure the ginger plants and flowers had given me.

If anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong in giving presents and expecting acknowledgement, please do so.

Little red sedan

We were coming up the Kuranda Range on Thursday this week after spending a few hours in Cairns on appointments and were glad to be going home as we were soaked to the skin and tired.  The monsoonal rain was starting to cause real problems, even just parking was a trial and several times we had to step into ankle deep water getting in and out of the car. 

About three quarters of the way up the range, which winds like a switchback up over the mountains for 20+ kilometres, there was a small red sedan in front of us.  Suddenly just over the top of a rise and out of the blue the driver put the left flasher on and slammed on the brakes there and then in the middle of the lane.  I was a sensible distance behind it but there was a car coming up in the lane beside me at greater speed.  I couldn't see out of the back window as it was so misted up and the rain was lashing down.  I managed to brake sufficiently and let the faster car in the other lane keep going but I came very close to swinging out in front of him and only just saw him appear in time.

Little red sedan nearly caused a 3 car pile up for which, no doubt, the weather would have been blamed in the news report.  Why, oh why, do people do things like that?

Yesterday, Friday, it was even worse on the roads and we were glad we hadn't had to go down to Cairns on that day.  One car went over the edge of the Kuranda range and another was swept off the Gillies range at Pete's Bridge which we had only gone down on Thursday.  Fortunately the first driver didn't have any serious injuries and the second one manage to leap out of her car before it went floating down the river and sank.

Yesterday we were cut off from going into our nearest town which is only 3 klms away as the river was up over the bridge but it went down later in the day.  We've had water rising up in the workshop floor downstairs which must have a faulty and probably illegal concrete slab and we've had water coming through the ceiling above the kitchen and above a lounge room window.  Fortunately we don't own the joint and one good thing that has happened is that we've probably found how the tree frogs get into our toilet which is also downstairs.  So goodbye tree frogs, much as I like you, I don't want any risk of you taking one of your phenomenal leaps on to my nether regions!

You've gotta wonder!

I came out of the Woolworths shopping centre in Atherton yesterday and as I walked back to our car I heard a very small dog barking in a car.  I followed the sound to a red Land Rover Discovery and saw there was a small blonde coloured chihuahua shut in it.  I returned to the centre and found the caretaker inside the doors and she followed me out and took down the details of the vehicle and returned to the centre to broadcast it on the public address system.  I waited to see what happened and as I stood back in the centre of the car park I saw a woman approach the vehicle with a shopping bag.  She didn't look directly into the car but looked around as if looking for someone.  I walked up to her and asked if it was her vehicle.  She said it was and that her husband must have taken the dog out as it wasn't there anymore.  I pointed out that the dog had given up barking and was in the next stage of heat distress and was in the foot well on the passenger side.  "Oh yes" she said.  I told her that it was I that had reported the dog in distress and she told me that the windows were open and it was parked in the shade.  I drew her attention to the fact that the windows on either side were open 1cm and that only the front of the car was in the shade of a tree.  She appeared not to know that it was a criminal offence to shut a dog in a car on a hot day and as it was about 30 degrees celcius according to the bureau of meteorology I didn't know how she could dispute this but she did.  I said that a dog could die in a hot car in 10 minutes and he said that she had just come from Georgetown and did I know what it was like there.  I failed to see the connection between Georgetown and Woolworths car park in Atherton but she pursued the theory that there is a connection.  She said the dog had survived 13 years so it was hardly likely to die in the heat of her car that day.  Again she brought up Georgetown and had I been there.  Her husband arrived as I was walking away and she pointed out that it was me that had reported the dog in distress.  She called out "see you later" and I said "I do hope not".  In future I will have the numbers of local police stations in the phone and I won't be bothering with caretakers, even though this one did do her job.  The full force of the law for the next one.

Fish and Chips

Yesterday we decided to have fish and chips at the fish shop in a well known Mall in Cairns.  If you can picture a very open fish shop that has fresh fish and shell fish behind the glass counters and the situation is on a corner inside the Mall.

I waited for my turn and asked the older female assistant for Spanish Mackerel and chips as displayed on the signage behind the counter.  The alternative was Barramundi and chips.  The prices were clearly marked.  She told me that I'd have to order that round the corner.  So I duly walked round the corner, noticed the signage behind the counter that was identical in offering and price to the one on the first side.  She followed me to the around the corner counter which adjoined the one I had already ordered at.  I said I'd only ordered from the sign behind her and she commented that was "Sunday's offering".  And also "what would you like to order".  "This", she said " is today's offering" (today being Saturday).  I couldn't keep a straight face and placed the same order.  She didn't flinch.  She would have done if I hadn't restrained my already cyclone stressed self.

I think she should make friends with the woman at the truck stop in Murrurundi who admonishes anyone who asks for a "flat white coffee" with the retort that she has checked on the internet and it is actually "white coffee you want".  Be aware that "flat white" is an Australian phenomena but as she is in Australia and serving Australian truckies, surely it would be only polite to go along with the majority.

On top of this treatment of customers as though they are an inconvenience, I would like to add that I am tired of large retailers who stock their shelves during the day.  At one time this was done at night after closing.  It provided many people with part time jobs that were convenient for them when a partner was home to look after the children etc etc.  Now we have to try and navigate with trollies past massive yellow stepladders, pallets in the way and staff that are by and large, oblivious to the struggling shoppers.  What are the shops for?  To provide service to the customers or work for the employees.  How about both and we work out who should do what and when.  BigW please take note.