Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell

Join Us – Tuesday, December 14th, 2010. 8pm mst – 9pm mst 

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010.

Family Leadership: The Power of Training
Last week we talked about improving people skills and developing an organization to build success. Now we are going to discuss how we get those people to work better within the organization. For families it means getting your kids to buy into the organization and work better within your rules.  HOW DO YOU DO THAT??? Well, in the corporate world, if someone doesn’t fit, you let them go. In your family you can’t do that, so it all comes down to one skill that we will focus on…Training.

 You will walk away with:

• ·         A more clear picture of what you want to accomplish in your family. (A family “mission statement.”)
• ·         Understand how to get your family to buy into that mission.
• ·         Develop clear expectations for your family.
• ·         And be introduced to a system that may help people in your family get along better with each other!
• ·         Define your role as a teacher and an example in the home.

Again, you can see the obvious ties to business. We will even spend a few minutes talking about how to make sure you have the right people on board. In a family, you get what you get…so we will really focus on how to get the most effectiveness out of what you have. Join us as we work together to become complete leaders: your self, your family, and your career!       

 To subscribe to our weekly webinar, please visit our website at www.jasonharwood.com.

Posted by Indian Creek Web Design – Specializing in custom web design, e-commerce, SEM/SEO/SES, blogging and social networking. 866-228-9030

Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell

Join Us – Tuesday, December 7th, 2010. 8pm mst – 9pm mst 

Developing Yourself as a Leader: People and Processes
The most important organization that you are a part of is your family. As with a business, people and organization are two of the most difference-making principles in your family. This one-hour webinar will focus on how to help build up the people in your family as well as how to strengthen the organizational structure of your home.

Your Take Away’s:

• ·         Family “Personnel” Development
  • o   Tips and ideas on how to build up others in your family.
  • o   Methods of improving the relationship between you and others in your family
  • o   Improved skills on communicating with others
  • o   Patterns to employ within your family so everyone feels included
• ·         Family Organizational Structure
  • o   Improved responsibility sharing in the home
  • o   Increased interaction between family members
  • o   Improved “meeting” structure
  • o   Principle based leadership skills

As you can see, these principles are going to help you in your personal life, family life, and your career. So no matter where you need leadership improvement, this will be a highly effective hour for you! Make sure to join us as we explore ways to help make you a complete leader in every aspect of your life. To subscribe to our weekly webinar, please visit our website at www.jasonharwood.com.

Posted by Indian Creek Web Design – Specializing in custom web design, e-commerce, SEM/SEO/SES, blogging and social networking. 866-228-9030

Developing You as a Complete Leader: Your Self, Your Family and Your Career

Starting December 7th, 2010, it’s time to start “Getting the most out of your Life”

This training is like nothing you will find anywhere else. We combine three things that will help you become successful in every part of your life.

• A top business book is suggested for every month. But we know you may not have time to reade! So we take the principles of the book and combine them into a wekkly training that gives you the information you need. Get archived recordings and take these powerful lesson with you anywhere!
• Your life isn’t all business all the time! The principles of business life apply equally as well to your most important organization…your family. These trainings take the lessons of the business world and apply them to family life. Learn how to better “grow the business” of your family and improve interactions with your spouse, siblings, parents, and kids.
• And finally, all lessons are taught by a highly effective and exceiting presenter. jason has a long history of experience both in the business world and in working with parents, teenagers and kids. He combines over 10,000 hours of teaching teenagers with over a decade of assisting people start, grow and maintain businesses. You are sure to love his style and enthusiasm as he teaches on his two great loves: Family and Business.

As you can see, these principles are going to help you in your personal life, family life, and your career. So no matter where you need leadership improvement, this will be a highly effective hour for you! Make sure to join us as we explore ways to help make you a complete leader in every aspect of your life.

Business lesson that will help you in your business or career applied to help you raise a successful FAMILY!

Get to Know Jason Harwood

Jason Harwood combines more than a decade of business development with years of experience working with teenagers and kids of all ages together in a way that will help your business, and more importantly, help your family!

Join the Book Club

Every month we suggest a great business book. Then we take principles from that book and show how they apply to your home, family and business. Enjoy building your complete life: You, your family, and your career!

Missed a Call?

Don’t worry! Archived recordings from previous calls are available online to listen to or download and listen on the go! Take your learning with you everywhere and turn your car or exercise into a personal University!

Areas of Impact through Leadership Training with Jason Harwood:

• Money – Wealth Building, Income, Financial Intelligence
• Career – Business Building, Development Trajectory, Transitions, Raises and Promotions, Resumes and Interviews, Career Fulfillment
• Body – Weight Loss, Health, Fitness, Feeling Great
• Relationships – Dating, Marriage, Divorce, Family and Children
• Communication – Workplace, Family, Conflict and Difficult Situations, Romantic, Communication Skills/Relationships
• Balance – Balance among all the aspects of your life
• Confidence, Self-Trust, & Happiness – Living a satisfying, balanced, successful life

“Experience how good it feels to live life proud and contented.”

Put an end to thinking about how you wish it were and take action. Take the step to find out more, email Jason Harwood or call (208) 392-8746.

Written by Brent C. Johns of Indian Creek Web Design – Specializing in custom web design, e-commerce, SEM/SEO/SES, blogging and social networking. 866-228-9030

When you think of Babe Ruth you think of the Yankees, the greatest and most successful baseball franchise in history. The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles, more than any other team in history. Their hated rivals are the Boston Red Sox, who have only won 7 World Series titles. The fates of these two teams collided in 1919 when Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold his young, up and coming talented pitcher/slugger Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $100,000. At this point in history the Yankees had never won a World Series and the Red Sox had won 5, including the World Series the previous October in 1918. Ruth had performed amazingly that year. He won 2 games in the Series and also hit well helping propel his team to a win over the White Sox.

The story of Ruth being sold is what I want to focus on. Ruth was sold because he wanted more money and because he was seen as a distraction and disciplinary problem. The Yankees didn’t care, they wanted talent and were willing to put up with and develop a player as successful as Ruth despite the fact that he needed a little bit of extra work. The result? The Yankees won 26 World Series titles before the Red Sox could win even one more title. Eighty-six years of futility for the Red Sox, the most famous stretch in baseball history. Known as, “The Curse of the Bambino” it literally took decades for the Red Sox to recover from casting off the greatest player in baseball history.

The lesson for us: When running any type of organization, remember that everyone you work with will have flaws (Babe Ruth had LOTS of them) but you cannot simply write off or “sell off” people with talent that you may disagree with or have a hard time getting along with. That is the easy and lazy thing to do. Just write them off, just stop working with them, just let them go, but that doesn’t lead to success! Just ask the Yankees and the Red Sox. The Yankees were a financially floundering team in 1919. They bought Babe Ruth and they have never been the same! One person can make a difference and one person with talent can be very hard, if not impossible to replace. What is needed is patience, persistence, and above all, perspective.

When someone in your organization upsets you, have patience. When they cause problems, you have to have persistence to build them up rather than cast them off. The biggest blunder of the Red Sox in 1919: a lack of perspective. They could not see the big picture. They were so focused on the here and now that they couldn’t see the potential that Ruth had. They didn’t see that getting rid of their greatest talent would take them decades to recover from. You simply don’t replace a Babe Ruth. You have to work with him, develop him, put up with some his faults and quirks in an effort to help build a successful team.  But the Sox couldn’t see that, so they sold him off and spent 86 years trying to recover.

The same is true for us. Find someone that has talent, that has promise. Work with that person. Build that person up. Train, develop, improve, and have patience with these people. We all need the best people we can find, and we will all have to put up with some of their problems and flaws or we will find ourselves as cursed as the Red Sox were.

With about 30 minutes to spare he was in his shirt, had found his book and even came to me asking me how to put on his neckerchief and slide. I properly adorned him in full Scouting uniform (minus the hat, shorts, socks, boots, and compass that the Scout Office will tell you is the “FULL” uniform!). As I was doing it I thought back to my own first Scouting experience. I still remember my very first Scout meeting over 2 decades later. Josh was ready to go. But I knew something he didn’t. Most kids don’t wear their uniform, and you really never wear the neckerchief to a Scout meeting. In fact you often fight with your Mom and Dad about even having to wear it to his own Eagle Scout Court of Honor. But, my son doesn’t know this. He believes what is on that paper and has bought in to what we supplied as his uniform. He believes that you are supposed to do what is written on that paper. So, I dress him up and Mom takes him to his first meeting.

I get to pick him up from that first meeting and he has had a wonderful time! Cookies and activities, I mean, there is nothing better for an eight-year-old. And now he gets to hang out with all the older cooler kids who are already 8 and are Scouting veterans. But I noticed something as he came out of that first meeting ready to be picked up. He was the only one in a neckerchief, the only one in a neckerchief slide, the only one with his book, and the only one even in a Scout shirt. I knew this would be the case because I have been to lots of Scout meetings (right up until I got me Eagle Scout and then never did another thing!). And immediately I realized a very true, but somewhat scary principle.

Next week when my son goes to Scouts, there is a very high likelihood that the conversation will include something like, “But I don’t have to wear the shirt, no one else does!” And we might say, “But the paper says you should.” And he will respond with, “I’m not wearing it, no one else does!” And thus the great and scary truth. No matter what we say to our kids, they are probably going to end up doing a lot of what they see other people doing. They are also going to do much more of what they see us doing and less of what they hear us tell them. Don’t be afraid that your kids aren’t listening to you, be afraid that they are watching everything you do!

The Lesson: whether in business or home, make sure that you are doing the things that you would want you kids, your employees, your business partners, anyone that you do business with to do. You can’t say and preach one thing and then act in a way completely inconsistent with those teachings. Nothing ruins your credibility faster than being a hypocrite. These are those people that the more you get to know them the less you like them, the less you respect them, the less you trust in and believe in them. That comes from hypocrisy. Anytime someone acts or speaks in a way inconsistent with what they try to teach, they lose credibility and the next time they talk, people stop listening.

I will always remember my son at his first Scout meeting. He so believed that he should act a certain way because that is what he was told. He was completely willing to do it. Until he saw that things were a little different than what he had been told, and now we may never go back to the time when he will willingly put on his Scout shirt and go to Scouts. The innocence is lost, and I’m not sure it will ever come back. Make sure you act in a way that maintains the credibility you have with those you hope to lead so that they keep wearing that Scout shirt every week because they see you acting the same way you talk.

I’ve made my mistakes

Got nowhere to run

The night goes on

As I’m fading away

I’m sick of this life

I just wanna scream

How could this happen to me?

Lyrics from a song by the group Simple Plan. I was listening to this song the other day and was really struck by the message of this song, if you change just two little words in there…”sick of” to “blessed in.”

How did this happen to me? Beautiful wife, four kids, nice house, nice cars, joy in my relationship with God, loving and supportive parents, wonderful siblings, a good career, health, everything you could ever hope for. And all I am left to ask is, “How could this happen to me?” Why do I find myself blessed in ways that other people aren’t?

This came at a good point for me. We also have our struggles: finances, kids, job, cars, stress. I could fill all my time thinking about things that seem to be going wrong. The problem with life these days is that too many people are doing just that! There are lots of crummy things going on in the economy and in the world today, and you may have had a lot of bad things going on in your life right now. Maybe a job loss or a health crisis and you may also be wanting to shout, “How could this happen to me?” In down times like this, it is always helpful to remember,

Someone has it worse than you.

That is what I remembered that day as I listened to this song. My life has its small little struggles, but, boy, I sure have it a lot better than many other people. When you are feeling like your life is down right now, here are three ideas on how to at least getting your mind headed in the right direction (and amazingly you will find that your life cannot go some place that your mind is not ready to go.)

Activity:

To start moving forward, there is one little key…MOVE. Look for someone who needs something and move to help that person or fill that need. You will find greater satisfaction and joy in life if you are doing something that blesses the life of someone or some group. You don’t need money for this or even a lot of time. Just open your eyes and you will be amazed at the opportunities that will come up for you to reach out and help someone else.

Our bodies have a limited capacity for satisfaction and joy from any substance or activity. Think of food. You can eat it and love it, but only for so long. Then you get so full that you are sick. Your capacity for joy has reached its limit. But take that same food and share it with a room full of friends and suddenly the joy you have experienced from that same food is multiplied. Your joy is incredibly larger because of the giving. This is true of every action in our life. We reach our limit and can only then find greater joy by sharing with others.

When you need a boost of joy, the fastest and most enjoyable way to get it, then is not to try and do something for yourself, but to try and do something for someone else.

Spirituality:

Not to be confused with religion, this is the simple premise that we are here for a reason. I like to think of it as popcorn. We came here as small little kernels and while we had the potential to become this amazingly big and bright person, we weren’t there yet. The only way to get there is through trial and the “heat” of life. When troubles and heartache come it can be a great opportunity to grow. Both in an understanding of ourselves and in our relationship with God.

All people fail, but no one is destined to be a failure. All people struggle, but no one is stranded. All people hurt, but no one is hopeless!

At times like these the real question turns from “Why?” to “What?” “What do I need to learn from this? What can I do better in the future? What refining do I need in order to move closer to God?” Sometimes this is a long process of coming to an understanding of where to move forward, but an increased emphasis on the spiritual aspects of your life can often show you the open door, or window, that God is placing before you.

DON’T get so caught up in feeling sorry for yourself or in the stress of the moment that you fail to stop and spiritually process what is going on and what God has in store for you. You will usually find an answer of peace and promise even if it isn’t immediate prosperity.

Camaraderie:

Many people in our lives are willing to help, they are just looking for an opportunity. Friends and acquaintances usually know people who can help you. In the US the significant majority of jobs are found through networking and contacts. It can be a great release to just reach out to a friend who can help share the burden with you. While everyone varies in how much they like to talk about the problems they are having, think of at least one person that you can talk to that will listen and offer some perspective.

For my wife and I we often call either my Mom or her Mom when we face difficult times. There usually isn’t too much that they do, or that they even can do, but they offer perspective and advice that is invaluable. They help us see the bigger picture and bring things into a better focus. They help us remember the principles that we are trying to build our lives on and help us get our feet pointed forward. We usually hang up the phone just feeling a little better even though the situation will be pretty much the same tomorrow morning.  It just helps sometimes to have someone to chat with. Find that person and then be ready to be that person when you are needed. The 10 minutes won’t hurt you and it may do them a great service.

In the rounds of life there are always people who are up and others who are down. When you are down, there are people willing to reach down and help you up. Remember this when you are up! Because at that point you will need to be alert to the needs of those around you who are down.

So, I am left still wondering why so many great things have happened to me. I try my best to work through the hard times knowing that I am destined to end up on top. And when I feel times of trial coming on I try to remember:

Activity

Spirituality

Camaraderie

One of these three (and usually a combination of all three) will help get my head and feet pointing in the right direction and I soon find my feet following to the greatness that God does have in store for me. Follow this same pattern and you will find it too!

We have a water belt that holds 2 small water bottles and then a third water bottle can click onto the belt…specifically for longer runs. I woke up, filled up two water bottles, but them on the belt and headed out for a 2 hour, 15 mile run. Well, that water lasted about 10 miles. The last 5 miles I was without water, and that was a very bad thing. By the time I had three miles left I was feeling weak, thirsty, and dehydrated. By the time I had 2 miles left I was totally miserable, only thinking about how to get home as fast as possible so I could get some water. The last mile was one of the hardest I have ever run. Mentally and physically I was spent and there was no way to get relief. Just had to push through to the jug of water that was mercifully waiting (lovingly prepared by my adoring wife) for me in the fridge. And while this was one of the hardest runs I have ever run, it was one of the most significant lessons I have ever experienced and it really hit me in three areas. Perhaps the three most important areas of any person’s life, spiritual, personal, and family (and really what else matters?)

Spiritual

I couldn’t help but think as I was running of Christ’s parable of the 10 virgins (Matt. 25:1-13). Here I was one of the foolish virgins who had failed to prepare myself properly. I saw in my mind the 5 virgins trying to run as fast as they could to the market to get some oil and their disappointment when they found that they were too late. And why were they shut out? Because they had not prepared themselves. The time to prepare is not when you are in mile 13 or 14 of a 15 mile run! The time to prepare is well in advance. 1 more minute of preparation at 7:00 am would have made a world of difference at 9 am. Unfortunately for me and for those who are represented in the parable of the virgins, we both hit a time when it is simply too late to make the changes and preparation needed to be ready for the coming of Christ. And you can’t do it at the last minute! There is no procrastinating of personal development. You either are the person you need to be or you are not, and you can’t change that in a minute. It will take long hours, days, and years of proper preparation to make sure you have the water you need in the difficult miles of your life.

What do you need to do? Make the daily preparation needed. Did you pray for assistance and thanksgiving today? Did you take advantage of the blessing of God’s word in your life? Did you serve? Did you love? Did you give? Did you become more of the Christlike person you will need to be in order to be ready for both the final test and every other test along the way? If not, I would encourage you to start getting some water in your tank now, or that dangerous and excruciating day will come when many will find that they simply did not prepare and the time will have passed too far.

Personal

I heard a comment from Brian Tracy this week where he taught his E=E principle. Entertainment=Education. He taught that for the average person their ratio is roughly 50 to 1. Meaning 50 minutes spent on entertainment for every 1 minute spent on education. I thought of that as I was running. Have I taken the time to prepare my mind for the personal and professional difficulties and opportunities that will come my way in a constant stream of challenges and choices? Again, the same principle applies. I can’t suddenly make all the changes necessary or instantly learn the skills that will be required to be qualified for the promotion that opens up at work. I have to have spent the time to prepare myself long before mile 13 gets there. I can’t think that I can float through parenthood without trying to learn from those who have gone before or those who have succeeded. Our minds need nourishment, and nothing nourishes our mind like learning. What a shame that so many stop actively learning after high school or college! That puts them in a position to be able to earn in their profession and be successful in their lives at an 18 or 25 year old level! That simply won’t do when you are 30, 35, 40, 45, etc. The time to prepare is not when the crisis is in front of us. We have to personally prepare through education if we want to be ready to step into the amazing opportunity that is currently just beyond our reach.

What do you have to do? Do exactly what I didn’t do. Educate yourself to be able to handle what is coming your way. Had I read or listened to my wife (who has already run a marathon) she would have told me or an article would have suggested that I take more water than I did. I could have even learned from my previous experiences that I would need more water due to the rising temperatures. Many of us run through life the same way. Not sure what will happen and when we get to a major challenge we are simply unprepared and it saps all our energy and ability leaving us unable to function as effectively as needed. The only antidote: whether through reading, listening, taking classes, finding a mentor or coach, or some other proven educational method, we simply have to prepare ourselves through education.

Family

Nothing seems to pass so fast as time with family. Five years in a job can seem like an eternity, but those same 5 years in the life of a child passes very quickly.  The preparation time is just too significant to pass up. It is the water at 7 am. Again, the problem is that you can’t address the problem when the problem hits. The time to talk about drugs with your child is not when they first get asked to do drugs. You won’t even be there anyway. And it certainly isn’t after they have been arrested for dealing drugs. But, did you take the time to prepare your kids for the importance of getting along with others? The amazing way a compliment will help to diffuse a difficult situation? How taking responsibility for something is vitally important?

The first thought that went through my head as I was struggling through the last few miles was about my family. Am I taking the time to properly prepare my family for the difficult miles that lie ahead? Have I taught my 7 year old (and then the 5, 3, and 3 year old) the things he needs to know at this critical time in his life? Does he know how to choose good friends? Good work habits? Proper respect for authority? The difference between true joy and momentary happiness? There is definitely a 7 am when it comes to preparing your family. There simply comes the time when you have to let your children go and hope they have enough water. That they will use it properly and that the water you have provided will get them through to the finish. Nothing will bring more sadness or sorrow than having not taken the time to fill their water jugs! As John Whittier said, “For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.” That cannot be more true than when we look at the time we spent in preparation of our children.

What do you need to do? Two things: Make an almost daily habit (at least 5 times a week) of having dinner together as a family. It will make all the difference in the world. Sit, talk, eat, and enjoy each other. Second, make at least a weekly habit of spending an evening together as a family talking about important life lessons and having fun together. That is only 52 times a year. In 18 years that is only just over 900 lessons (and most of them they won’t remember anyway!) to get them ready for the rest of their life! That isn’t much time, and the clock is ticking so get started now!

I will never make the mistake again of running without enough water. But more importantly, I learned the bigger lesson. I am going to make sure that my spiritual, personal and family preparation get much more time than what they have received in the past! I hope this has helped to make you feel like you should do the same!

Because of this difference, my wife is frequently looking for people for me to go running with. It is her way of showing she loves me. She likes it, so I must like it too and because it is not happening, if she helps me my life will be better! So a few weeks ago I went running with a good friend of mine. He is faster than me and really pushed me to go past my normal pace (another lesson all in itself) and we did have a good time running together, but what I learned has really proven to be a powerful principle of running and of business life. We would run out on the country roads, most roads didn’t have sidewalks, and we would go along side by side (always into traffic, just like you are supposed to.) As a car would approach it became necessary to get into single file so that we didn’t take up too much room on these country roads.

Now here is the important part: When I needed to fall back to get behind my friend into single file line it only took one stride to slow down enough to fall in behind him. Then the car would pass and it was time to go from single file back to side by side. Strangely it took more than one stride to catch back up. In fact it took a lot of effort and about 5-10 strides to go from right behind him to running side by side. It was a lot of work!

The lesson hit me without even a whole lot of effort! How many times have you experienced that same thing in life. It is so easy to quit. It takes no effort to hold back. It doesn’t take much work to slow down. But when we do, it becomes incredibly difficult to get back up and going again. When the alarm goes off and you know you need to get up and get going, how easy is it to just roll back over. It is great to get up and work out on Monday, but then to do it on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & Saturday is much more difficult.

The easy route will always be easier, but it takes you in the wrong direction!

Slowing down is not the way forward. Ease is not the place you want to be or the person you want to become. As with running, you usually don’t have to do big, major tasks. I never sprint when I run, it is just consistently putting one foot ahead of the other.  And working to maintain that pace. It is when I slow down that things really start to unravel, because getting back up to speed takes so much time, effort, and work.

The same is true in life there are a few simple things that need to be done in order to really be successful. We have been taught them our whole lives. Start with Love God and Love Others. Christ started there and it seems to be a pretty successful pattern. Then keep doing it and keep up your pace. Keep moving forward. Don’t fall back behind. If you do, you can always catch up, but it is so much easier to keep doing those simple things that lead to great success.

This great quote teaches us two powerful lessons that are important for your business.

First is that if you want to learn you have be to willing and able to look back. That is where things are the clearest. Every mistake should point you in a direction of improvement and progress. Never let an experience go by that you do not learn from, or learn the wrong lesson from. Because that back window is so clear you need to make sure you look back and clearly see both mistakes and magnificent moments.  I have found it interesting that every year we do New Year’s resolutions hoping to focus on what we want to get better at in the coming year. When is the time of the year that we look back, through the clearer window and see something that we have done well and something that we have done poorly?  How often have we made plans to maximize our strengths and avoid a repeat of past mistakes? I challenge you today to look through that clearer back window. Think about the past 3 months of your life. List at least 2 positive things you have accomplished and 1 mistake that you made. Now you have a game plan moving forward. Now you know what you are doing well and what you need to improve on. Not just goals that may or may not reflect the reality of what is going on in your life or that may fall victim to the uncertainty of the dirty front windshield. Better to use the clearer rearview mirror to decide where to put your focus and to understand what your strengths are.

Have you ever tried to drive with a dirty windshield? All crouched over trying to get your face as close to the windshield as possible. Looking for that one small patch of clarity that has somehow opened up. Hands clutched on the wheel afraid that you will not be able to react quickly enough should something run out in front of you, a pothole shows up, or a curve in the road happens.  How silly would it be to assume that because the last 100 yards of road have been clear and straight that the next mile will also be clear and straight. Have you ever put your head out the window to try and get a better view. Ever reached out the window and used your hand to help clean off your front windshield? We are always trying to get a better view. It is the same with business. The moment you take your eyes off the road or become complacent because things have been going so well you are sure to careen off the road. Within moments your business can find itself in a ditch. The second lesson is the lesson of driving with a dirty windshield.  Because your front window is so unclear you need to be attentive and ready to move at any moment. You have to be ready to move! Complacency and contentment are the first indicators of an upcoming disaster. In How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins, he teaches that the first sign of a company falling is hubris born of success.  There is always a dirty windshield and uncertainty ahead. If you are to be successful it will require diligence and attentiveness, and to stay ahead you have to be that driver clutching the wheel giving full focus to what might be coming ahead ready to correct course and make necessary changes at any moment. What change do you need to make? Are you ready to take advantage of a great opportunity? Did you learn something new today? Are you alert to life or just sitting back and hoping that nothing bad happens?