by Rex Richard | Oct 3, 2012 | Business, Renewing The Mind, Spirituality
Studies have long shown that individuals have about 40% control over their mindset. If you feel you’re not in control or if your 40% isn’t positive, there may be ways to retrain your brain, through your actions, to enhance a more positive attitude. Here are a few steps to take toward a sunnier outlook on life:
- Make time for yourself. You need to step away from your business and your daily stressors as a way toward a happier outlook. If you can take a ten-minute “you” break, you just might be happier. If possible, go outside for your ten-minute you breaks.
- Count your blessings. In times of stress it’s easy to look at what you don’t have or what you wish you hadn’t lost. Take some time at the beginning and end of each day and count your blessings on what you do have, what you accomplished and what you have to look forward to.
- Push yourself toward greater heights. Challenging yourself and taking initiative helps you feel more in control of your life and your business. It’s also found that pessimists tend to sit back and wait for things to come to them or to happen and this leads to dissatisfaction. Raise the bar at work and home and then reap the rewards of your hard work.
What do you do to enhance your attitude?
by Rex Richard | Aug 7, 2012 | Renewing The Mind, Spirituality
The power of positive thinking can’t be denied, but then neither can the power of surrounding yourself with positive people! I believe that positivity not only brings inner peace, but it leads you toward a path of success, enhances your health and happiness and helps you improve relationships with friends, family and business associates.
Here are some of my thoughts on the benefits of surrounding yourself (both personally and professionally) with positive people:
- Just as bad moods are contagious, so too, are good moods! If you exude positive energy, those around you will pick up on that and it will surround you like a ray of sunshine. Project the attitude you would like to surround yourself with.
- Positive thinking can also impact project outcomes. If you’re in the midst of a difficult task, but are thinking positively, the project will likely move along more smoothly and you’ll see a better outcome to your efforts!
- Your inner dialogue affects your actions. When you’re working on a project tell yourself, “I can do this,” or “Even though this is trying, it is possible!” These words will help you power through your projects whether it’s writing a blog post, working on an accounting issue or preparing for a speech.
Here are some steps I take to boost my positivity every day:
- I surround myself with people who feed me positive energy and I offer mine right back to them!
- I read scripture or a passage of an inspirational (to me) book every day
- I watch movies or listen to music that moves me toward happiness
What do you do to be positive for both yourself and those around you?
by Rex Richard | Feb 29, 2012 | Business, Spirituality
Do you wake up in the morning looking forward to your day – both at home and at the office? You should. If you’re living a life of purpose and pursuing a career or entrepreneurial endeavor that you love, happiness will certainly follow.
It’s been shown that humans are at their happiest when they’re “absorbed in an activity or challenge that interests them.” For many people though, they don’t even realize they’re happy because they’re so involved in that particular moment that it never occurs to them simply because they weren’t consciously concentrating on happiness.
Happiness is something that everyone can work toward achieving. It may sound cliché but the decision to be happy is truly that – a decision. If you choose to be happy, chances are, that feeling will follow.
Here are some ways to pursue happiness and bring it into your work and home life:
- The first thing you need to do when you wake up is to mentally count out at least 10 things that you appreciate. Write them down if it will help you remember them throughout the day. Do the same thing at the end of each day – count your blessings.
- Do more of the things you love – in life and at work
- Do fewer of the things that you don’t love. For example, if you are an entrepreneur and there are tasks that you simply don’t enjoy, aren’t good at and don’t help bring in business and clients, find a partner or outsource those tasks. This frees you up to concentrate on your core competencies and the things that make you happy
- Take time during the day to ask yourself if you’re happy? If you’re not, stop and consider how you can become happy and if you are happy in that moment, remember what you were doing and do more of it!
- Even on those days when you’re stressed out because you have too much work to do. Stop and remember that is a blessing as well – you’re doing what you love and the clients are following!
Taking time to revel in the moments that make you smile will truly make your day shine and will give you more items to be appreciative of at the end of each work day.
by Rex Richard | Feb 6, 2012 | Business, Personal Development, Spirituality
“Clarity Leads to Cash” is a phrase I heard recently and it got me to pondering whether it was true. Entrepreneurs that chase the next best idea or that are continually reinventing themselves to ride the wave of the latest fad aren’t helping themselves toward the cash at the end of the rainbow.
Do you have clarity in your business? Just as clarity in life helps you fulfill your life’s purpose, clarity in business helps you stay focused on what you truly want to do, where you ultimately want to take your business. Without clarity of purpose how will you know if your business is on the path you’ve set for yourself and for your ultimate business success.
While not all business owners look toward the bottom line as their only measurement of success, no business owner wants to be in business to lose money, right? What are your core competencies? What is the mission and vision statement for your business endeavor? Will you know clarity when you achieve it?
To find clarity you need to take time to write down your core competencies, what you do best, what drives you. Get a handle on what prompted you to go into business in the first place. Are you still focusing on what you do best or have you gotten sidetracked by the day-to-day tasks of running your business? Are you working on or in your business? Entrepreneurs with clarity understand they need to work On it rather than In it. Which path are you taking and do you have clarity of purpose?
by Rex Richard | Aug 20, 2011 | Spirituality
This question has been asked throughout the ages and argued possibly more than any other question… The statements I make below are not intended to settle this issue, but only to share my view. The reason this is important to me is because it serves as the foundational truth of all the business and personal growth advice I give.
I warmly welcome all faiths and even as God loves you and wishes to draw you to Himself, in a much less significant way I wish to emulate His example.
There is no way to “prove” there is a God, but we can observe the available evidence critically and then choose whether or not we want to “take the leap” of faith required to believe in God.
In contrast, because you cannot prove the existence of God, you also can not disprove it. That makes unbelief a step of faith as much as belief.
The evidence of the existence of God and who God is, specifically the “Biblical” narrative upon which I base these foundations, is historically, prophetically, archeologically, and hermeneutically, powerful and enormous in volume and example. Still at the end of the day it takes a leap of faith. We must take each belief, compile the evidence of that belief, compare the evidence, and then take the shortest leap.
I have looked at this intensely and believe that YHWH, Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, the first person of the Trinity, the great I AM, the Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, is indeed God.
This “Biblically based” faith of mine is not strong as some may think, but it is actually very weak. If not for the evidence and substantive provisions by God for my reassurance, my faith would crumble in disbelief. Fortunately He has given proof sufficient to the cause of answering every question I have asked… though some of the questions required significant research.
I am not politically correct, I don’t really care what anyone thinks of me, I must live with myself. I do all I can to think even as Jesus did when he loved the world. He was not prejudice, he did not favor any, he loved all, yet never compromised his message or beliefs. May God give me the strength to do the same, at all times, and to share the gifts, knowledge and experience He has given me to help others.
