Monthly Archives: August 2014

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Book Review: Fire Your Excuses!

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If you have EVER offered an excuse in your life for your bad behavior, for why you can’t kick a bad habit, or even for why you didn’t perform up to expectation, this book is a must-read. 

Fire Your Excuses is the result of the partnership between co-authors Dr. Bill Dyment and Dr. Marcus Dayhoff.  Several years in the making, this book will challenge you to Fire the Excuses that are holding you back, and reveal the secrets of the 8-10% who achieve lasting change in their lives by examining the top 8 areas where excuses do the most damage.

I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Bill recently. I left our meeting with a copy of Fire Your Excuses!, and a plan to read it in the next week. As I got into the first few pages I found that the recommended first step is to take their free on-line excuses assessment, and then read the rest of the book. The assessment is about 80 questions that I finished in about 10-15 minutes. As soon as I was done I got a 20+ page report of my results.  In the assessment you get a score for each of the 8 major excuses categories. These scores provide insight into areas where excuses may be hindering your progress.

My lowest score was on “Blind Spots and Weaknesses.” This category measured the extent that I might ignore or minimize areas of my life that need work, or where I am reluctant to accept feedback from others. People that know me are probably nodding their collective heads right now saying, “yep, sounds about right!” After reading the chapter on Blind Spots & Weaknesses I have a better understanding of where the issues are and what I need to do to improve. The authors even provide a 30-day challenge – homework guidance if you will, to help you get started on improving each category. I am working on my 30-day action plan to reduce the impact of “Blind Spots and Weaknesses” in my life! Then on to the next excuse area!

Here are the eight excuse categories:

Chapter 1: Blind Spots and Weaknesses

Chapter 2: Health & Wellness

Chapter 3: Social Connections

Chapter 4: Communication

Chapter 5: Time Management

Chapter 6: Finances

Chapter 7: Career

Chapter 8: Serving

 Take Action: Book Bonus & On-Line Support Community

Discover your excuses with the FREE  Fire Your Excuses Self-Assessment report at FireYourExcuses.com, and take the 30-day breakthrough challenge!

To help you get going and stay committed the authors created the Fire Your Excuses Community at FireYourExcuses.com, where you can get support from others and find other resources to help you on your journey to Fire Your Excuses.

Fire Your Excuses Buy Button

 

Category: Book Review

 

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#079: 5 Important Faith Lessons the Disciples Learned in a Storm

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Two weeks ago our article, Do You Have Enough Faith to Weather Life’s Storms? touched on how Jesus used a storm to build the disciple’s faith. This week we will look at 5 important faith lessons from this story in Matthew 14:22-36.

Faith in a storm

Jesus has just fed the 5,000 (actually 10,000 or more counting women and children) with five loaves and two fish. By the time they were done it was evening so He then dismissed the crowd, and directed the disciples to get in their boat and sail across the lake, while he went up on a mountain by Himself to pray.

When Jesus finished praying he started walking across the Sea of Galilee to catch up with the disciples in the boat. They were some distance from shore but not making much progress because heavy winds were blowing against them. The disciples see Jesus and are afraid thinking He is a ghost but Jesus reassures them and tells them not to be afraid.

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#078: 5 Signs You are Rebelling against God’s Call on Your Life

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Last week’s article, Do You have Enough Faith to Weather Life’s Storms? touched on the prophet Jonah. He had to endure a storm, was thrown into the ocean, and had a three-day time-out in the belly of a fish, all because he rebelled against God’s call on his life. In this case, the storm was needed to correct his attitude toward God and His commands.

This week I want to take a closer look at Jonah’s story to see what we can learn about the signs we are rebelling against God’s call on our lives. In Jonah’s case, his attitude toward God and what God asked him to do is what got him in trouble.

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#077: Do You Have Enough Faith to Weather Life’s Storms?

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As a kid growing up in Eastern Washington, we had rainstorms, ice storms, thunderstorms, wind storms, and snow storms. Snow storms were my favorite. Snow brought all kinds of outdoors fun like throwing snowballs, building snow forts, and of course, making snowmen. If there was enough snow school was even canceled! Yeah!

Source: CanStockPhoto.com

As I got a little older, I began to view storms through a different lens. Rain, wind, ice, and snow storms were all a test of my patience and endurance.

I’ve learned that life is pretty much a series of storms. Some of them bring nourishing rain, but some bring destruction. The storms in our lives are like that as well.

Storms in the Bible have one of two purposes; either to correct man or to help man grow spiritually:

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#076: Are Performance Reviews Critical To Business, Or Worthless Paper?

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Take a survey of the activities executives like the most in their jobs and performance appraisals of employees won’t be in the top 10, or even the top 20. In fact, if you ask most managers to describe their job-related duties chances are they won’t even mention employee performance reviews.

Performance Review

Most managers hate doing performance appraisals so much they’ll skip the entire process if they think they can get away with it.

If forced to complete the process, they typically save them all up until just before they are due and then run through all their employees one after another. They complete the forms, forward them to their boss, and forget about the process until reviews are due again next year.

Why is it that managers and employees dread the performance review? The list is long and varied:

  • the review is a complaint session in which a manager’s candor becomes a weapon to crush rather than build up an employee,
  • managers bring up gripes from all year and dump them on the employee,
  • managers and employees don’t view situations in the work history the same and no one can remember what really happened,
  • nothing ever changes as a result of the session so people view them as a waste of time, and
  • most performance review systems are highly subjective with standards that vary from boss to boss, and from one employee to another.

Here are twelve tips to make sure performance reviews in your organization are productive:

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