Sunday, July 20, 2014

Dream Living


It just occurred to me (and forgive me if fact checkers and researches find there is another who has articulated these ideas...  If so, good job to them, because I've adopted them and when I think of them, they feel like my own thoughts.  --and that goes for any and all of my posts....)


It just occurred to me that there are three types of "dream living"...


  •        Living IN a dream
  •        Living ON a dream
  •        Living the dream



Living IN a dream is the state of being delusional...  Either through over-optimistic thinking that denies reality, or through negative despair that sees no brighter day, a dream can haunt and torment a person.


Living ON a dream is the healthy use of hope to drive action.  It motivates a person to see beyond obstacles to find solutions and picks them up when they are down.  Living on a dream is the power that can move a person to real action for real results.


Living the dream is the feeling of gratitude in any condition that allows a person to understand (as the proverb says) "The secret to having it all is to realize you already do."


Which dream are you living?

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Vision is success

I was reading through one of my journals, and found the following words I penned on March 30, 2012 (almost 2 years ago, exactly) to be insightful and motivating: Some people view the world as being made up of winners and losers. I choose to believe we're all gladiators in the arena of life, each with varying degrees of success, skill, and victories under our respective belts. Like gladiators we can choose hate, anger, and negative emotion to drive us in a competitive aggression towards our personal goals. Or we can choose a comradery of brotherhood that propels us individually and collectively to wards victory. And why do we fight? who is the foe? Is it our brother? no. the lion, the tiger, or the bull? No. Perhaps the arena itself or the empire that enables the fight? Still no. They are all mere facilitators for our fight that, if not fought at their venue, would be fought out in myriad conditions, times, and places--either occurring naturally in our respective worlds, facilitated by some other entity at some other venue, or created ourselves through our own choices. No, the foe is not external. The real foe is within. it is us. The fight--while waged outwardly--is not about the superficial circumstances that make up our physical world. The real fight is within. It's the fight to conquer will-- to be disciplined enough to defeat the natural will of self destruction in view of a more glorious victory. And victory is found when, by virtue of our mental ability, strength of will, and personal desire directed towards the personal ends we decide to create, we are in fact able to manage our circumstances in such a manner as to bring our intended purposes to pass. Varying levels of this internal victory are sometimes observable in this great arena of life as we watch the intentions of purpose-driven individuals creating their intended purposes. More often, though, is the case where the observable conditions of a man don't tell us very much about the internal victories of self that occur in every battle. The key to turning internal victories into the very observable successes most of us may long for is vision. To create, believe in, maintain, and focus on a clear vision of the ultimate ends to which all effort is directed is in very deed the root, trunk, limbs, and leaves of victory. In short: to see, have faith in, and enact a clear vision is success.

Monday, March 03, 2014

Positioning Statement Template

In Marketing, it's important to differentiate a product from competitors. In order to do this, it's important to understand what makes your product uniquely valuable to the target customer. You have to share a little bit of how your "secret sauce" is going to blow away the customer's expectations. Here's a quick template for effective posititoing statements that has served me well: [The product] is a [the category] for [target customer]. Unlike other [competitive category], [The product] offers [the KEY benefit] by doing [the description/secret sauce/key differentiating feature].