Some years back I had the great opportunity to visit the country of Bolivia. We were there at the request of some Quechua Indians to help them in building their church. Needless to say we offered other ministry assistance too. But the story here is what I found out about myself.

We could have just stayed home in our little small town America, but we chose to put boots to the ground and show just how committed to the people there we were. Now the grunt work of the trip required that we help with the construction of the building. Most of it was complete except for the stucco interior. Now you have to picture the building. You can see from the photo of the little town of Chayanta that the buildings are mostly adobe brick with a stucco over them.

Now what’s the stucco made of? I’m glad you asked…rock, sand and cement. They mixed it all up into a lot wetter slurry then I would have it I was doing it, but hey…It’s their house. Now one of the component parts of this mixture was the rock and sand. Luckily we had a ready source of this material all around as you can see from the photos. But to get it, we had to take wheel barrows down this little dusty road to a dry riverbed. Shovel in hand, we dug and dug, filling the wheel barrow full. Now the really fun part begins. If any of you have ever put rocks in a wheel barrow, moved it across your front lawn, you know that you’re glad to reach the other part of the yard and be done with it. So up the road we trekked.

Did I fail to mention exactly where we were? OK, to make amends…here it is. Bolivia, home of the Andes’ Mountains with heights of 13,000 feet. We were all around and generally at an altitude of 12,500 feet. Now it’s HARD to breathe up there.

Now after only a few yards, I was ready to give out. My body just could not take it. Walking was one thing, pushing a fully loaded wheel barrow of sand, gravel and rock was another. The little children all around were laughing and giggling. They took the handles from me and off they went up the road to the church. Whew…was I ever thankful.

Now I know that the altitude had a large part to play with it, but I was out of shape. So what is it that’s getting you winded? Walking up the short flight of steps? Washing the car on the weekend, bending over to clean the lower side, gasping for air when you stand back up? Doing that spring yard work, finding out not only has the season changed, but you’ve added a few years and packed on a few pounds.

So what are you waiting for, a kick in the pants? Take this little story of mine (all true) as that kick. Take control of your life, start eating better, do some exercise that matters and get on that dusty road to success! I’m there with ya!

Decide, Commit, Succeed!

PS….on the edge of the road there, it’s many thousands of feet below and we scraped the side many times in our vehicle….YIKES!

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Some times we just need a little help.  A helping hand or a shoulder to lean on. A gentle nudge along the correct path.  A few kind words at just the right moment to change the course of our day.  How many times have you felt this way?  I know that I have and when it happens, it makes all the difference.

As I was thinking of training wheels, you know, the ones on our bikes when we were just learning to ride.  We haven’t learned the balance thing yet.  We need those tiny little wheels on our left and our right to help hold us up.  Honestly they’re probably not holding much of our weight or the bikes, but what they provide in stability and guidance are invaluable to us at that moment.  Just when we needed them.  Then that scary day comes along when our Dad grabs the wrench and starts to remove those wheels.  Our heart starts beating like crazy, and we have a great sense of trepidation over what might happen without our little friends.

But dad doesn’t just let us take off on our own.  He’s right there with us, holding the back of our seat, jogging lightly along side us all the way.  Up and down the street we ride, gaining strength from that feeling there are no wheels.  Now Dad is sweating up a storm by now, but he doesn’t let go yet.  He’s still there.  Solid as a rock.  Somewhere during the whole event he knows just the right moment to let up on his grip.  Lightly holding the seat feeling through the vibration and steadiness of our riding that we’ve become well balanced.  He let’s go and we’re just chatting away as if he’s still there.  Nope, he’s stopped.  And we’re doing it!

We need more Dad’s in our lives like that.  It seems we’re always learning new things, experiencing more that life has to offer.  If we’re lucky, we have those few people in our lives that we can say are the rocks that we can lean on, or the compass when we’re off track and need guidance.  I’ve found that I need training wheels when I’m learning something new.  It helps.  But over time, I gain that confidence and strength to take off on my own.  My mentor watches proudly from the sidelines.  I find success in that thing I’m doing and feel good about it.  All of these things happen to me and I get the joy of being able to share that with others as I gently hold the seat they’re on.

Be someone’s training wheels tomorrow.  Guide them along as they need it, or steady their course.  You’ll find more joy in the day when you’ve given this gift and stand back proud of that person’s success.

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Motivation Tips

• Inertia – When you act or start in motion doing something you set a course and begin a process of making strides or steps towards reaching a goal.  You get past that thinking phase and start living and doing instead of dreaming.  We all know that a body in motion tends to stay in motion or is easily kept there by a little effort.  But have you ever helped a friend out pushing their car into the driveway or to a gas station?  Dang it’s hard to get started isn’t it.  But once you start moving it’s like a breath of fresh air.  Not nearly the effort to keep it rolling versus when it was still.  That’s how we are in life.  This motivational tip is simply “Start moving”  do something.  Get up, take action, do some jumping jacks, I don’t care what it is, just

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Motivational Tip #3 Dare To Dream

Have you ever seen that person who day after day does the same thing.  Stays in the same ruts of life, fighting this or that, complaining about all the things that happened to them during the day or week and then starts all over again the next day or the next Monday?  What is that person doing to change the outcome of the picture of their life?

Why do we think our situation is going to change if we don’t change the routine of what we’re doing?  One of the things I think we don’t do is “dare to dream“.  We tend not to ask ourselves what we want in life.  Why do we do the things we do?  Why don’t we ever dream, AND the most important part, put this thought down on paper and glue it to our foreheads….no I mean bathroom mirrors.

Stretch your thinking, dream for that new car that will at least get you across town and back.  Dream for that house to raise your family in.  Dream for that extra income to pay off those bills.  Dream for that  job where you get to

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Motivational Tip #1 Just Do It

Oh no, not another motivational Blog! Oh yes! Why, because we all have days where we just don’t feel like doing anything! I was going to insert an expletive there, but the missus may read this.

So what’s the tip of the day? Just DO IT! What? Just do it! Not that hard right?

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Motivational Tip #2 Eat That Frog

WHAT?  Eat that Frog.  You have got to be kidding me!  No I’m not.  OK, maybe a little, but it’s really not that difficult.  You see, with a little seasoning, a bit of ketchup and…  oh I really am kidding now.

It’s a term used by a friend of mine Brian Tracy.  He wrote a fantastic book on this subject and makes a lot of good points.  But here’s the quick and dirty on this little tidbit.  Do the thing that is hardest or takes the longest at the start of the day.  Do the hardest one first, then every thing after that will be easy peasy.  Doing the hardest one first accomplishes a lot.  It gets a good task done and gives you a huge success to mentally check off as being done.  For me, these seem to give me a bit of rush with the endorphins that kick in once I’ve completed something, see the success and feel good about the results.

So we all would admit, to eat a frog would be a difficult thing to do.  I’m not talking about the fried frog legs in some southern cities, but the real, yucky, slimy, croaking thing that is very disgusting.  Some of the large tasks we have seem that way, but we should break them down into little bite sizes (or smaller tasks for you who get queasy) and plow our way through them early in the day.

End of day… SUCCESS!  So go out there and Eat That Frog!

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