And you’re you. Lots of people have access to these tools. We can all start from somewhere, build into something, make relationships, and express ourselves in a way that suits our interests.

You can read the full article by Chris Borgan Chris Brogan Behind the Scenes.

Then I was checking out some pics on twitpic from Robin Collins (follow her on twitter @RobinCollins ) and came across this image

About 30 minutes later I read this article by Randy Gage Your Unique Power to be You! @Randy_Gage on Twitter.

No one person in the world is the same as another. Not even “identical” twins are really identical.

I did a couple of searches in google and found
Wikipedia’s version of Know Thyself

In the true theological sense, “Know Thyself” is a fundamental tenet of the question of life’s meaning. To truly ‘know oneself’ in this sense involves a deeply personal, spiritual transformation whereby a person would seek to orient themselves towards understanding their own phenomenological perceptions of reality, so as to gain earnest insight into aspects of one’s own existence.

and Shakespeare’s version

“And this above all unto thine own self be true and it shall follow as the day the night – thou can’st not then be false to any man.”
- William Shakespeare.

It’s like they were ALL telling me the same message.

Stop

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Think

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Reflect

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And be the best darn YOU that You can!

Are you being the best you that you can be?

Next time you see me ask me if I’m being the best that I can be, and I’ll challenge you to as well.

Looking it up at our friends over at Webster Dictionary, www.m-w.com

Clarity – the quality or state of being clear: Lucidity

Clear – 4 a : capable of sharp discernment : Keen

4 b : free from doubt : Sure

You have to get very clear about what it is that you want. If you don’t know exactly what it is you want you will never get there. If you have a fuzzy idea or a vague idea of what you want that is the type of results you will have.

I was on a call yesterday that really brought this point home for me. The speaker was talking about an artist who wanted to do a painting. Let’s say they live next to this gorgeous mountain and lake and can see it right outside their window while sitting in their bedroom. They want to begin painting.

Let’s ask them, “So what do you want to paint?”

They reply with, “I don’t want to paint that mountain that you can see from my bedroom, and I don’t want to paint the beautiful lake. I know that that’s what I want, not to paint the mountain or lake.”

We follow with, “Is that it?”

They reply, “Yup, I don’t want that.”

They are never going to be able to paint that painting of not the mountain and not the lake because they have no idea, no clarity, no sharp discernment, about what it is that they do want. Why you might ask? Because our minds do not work that way. Our minds can only move towards what it is that we see and not the negative of that. We can use the negative aspect to help us clarify what it is that we do want.

Ok, let’s try this dialogue again. But this time the person has an idea of what they do want.

Let’s ask them, “So what do you want to paint?”

They reply with, “I want to paint that mountain that you can see from my bedroom, and I want to paint the beautiful lake right below it that has this beautiful reflection of the mountain on a clear day with the snow caps gleaming in the water. I may not have any experience painting, but I’m really excited about this.”

We say, “So you haven’t painted before, right?”

They reply, “Yup, that’s right I haven’t painted before. I know that I’m going to paint this great painting of the mountain and water. It’ll be so great!”

We can tell our friend is super psyched about getting started to paint the painting of the mountain and lake. Even if they don’t know the first thing about painting, they’ll take classes, read books, find and meet other people who have done it and get it started. They may not do it very well the first time, but as they get more involved, they’ll refine their painting skills and get better at it. So what does all this have to do with you?

Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet; the painting is actually just a metaphor for whatever it is that is your goal. Let’s say someone asks you, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” and you reply, “I don’t want to be in this job anymore. I want to not be working.” That is not very clear. You have to be able to describe and see in exact detail exactly what it is that you want so you can figure out the steps to take to get to where you want. If you have a very clear picture both in words and images in your mind it is much easier to move towards those images and pictures.

Sit down and think about the one thing that you want to do or have. Then write down exactly how it’d look like, how long, how big, what color, where are you at with it, who’s there with you, whatever it is that you need to get a clear picture. Get it to the point where you can see it in your mind exactly how you want it. Once you’ve got that figured out just keep bringing that picture up in your mind’s eye.

One tip is to get a piece of paper, or a pad of paper and put pen to paper and go through the process of describing what it is that you want. There should be no doubts or questions in your mind about what it is that you want to achieve.

Well according to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary located at m-w.com

declaration linked
Main Entry: dec·la·ra·tion
Pronunciation: "de-kl&-'rA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the act of declaring : ANNOUNCEMENT
2 a : the first pleading in a common-law action b : a statement made by a party to a legal transaction usually not under oath

So now we look at what does declare mean, again according to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary:

declare linked

1 : to make known formally, officially, or explicitly
2 obsolete : to make clear
3 : to make evident : SHOW
4 : to state emphatically : AFFIRM <declares his innocence>
5 : to make a full statement of (one’s taxable or dutiable property)

Ok, ok you might be asking yourself so what does this have to do with me? Stick with me here, I’ll get there in a second.

So I signed up for this early morning teleseminar, I’m a bit of a teleseminar junkie. I attend or listen to about 3 to 4 a week. There’s usually some great info and it’s good to study how they host and guests promote their products. I’m getting off on a tangent here. Anyways, I got on this early morning teleseminar…it was like 7 AM for meon Thursday, man was it early for a teleseminar, usually I’m inundated with teleseminars at night 5 PM, 6 PM, 6:30 PM, but this was one of the few that was in the morning. So I thought this one was a bit interesting and a little different. I get on the call with Mike Litman Best Selling Author of Conversation with Millionaires (of mikelitman.com) and he starts talking about Greatness Nation. If you’ve never been on call or heard a recording of Mike he’s got alot of energy and zip, especially for 7 AM in the morning.

He talked about give to get, and get to give.

What does that mean? You have to give to yourself. We have to give to ourselves first before we can go out there and try to save the world. Give yourself the gift of time, focus and access. Build ourselves up.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Mike said, “I want you to be a different person by Monday.” …this was Thursday morning.

The next couple of questions were good, remember we talked about questions a couple of days ago,

How can you make today memorable?
What is your goal?
When are you going to accomplish it?

Mike asked people to volunteer and declare what it is that they wanted to do and when (the latest was Monday). So i got on the line and declared my goal, “My goal is to contact 10 business contacts.” Then Mike asks me, “by when?” I say, “by Monday at noon.” Then I sent an email to Mike and said he’ll have someone follow up with me.

I declared it, what I want. I had been procrastinating about doing this for weeks. So now I declared it and have to be held accountable. I’ve done more in the last 48 hours to move me forward than I had done in the previous 2 weeks. Figure out what you want and declare it to the world.

Now, who else has used the power of declaration?

Sterling Valentine (of jvformula.com) declared to the world that he was going to sell $100,000 in 99 days. He was a guy with nothing but a beat up laptop and a dream that declared to the world that he was going to make it happen. He declared to everyone at jvalert that he was going on this mission. So how did he do? He did better than his $100,000 and has some other projects in the burner.

Joel Christopher (of masterlistbuilder.com) declared that he was going to double his list in 99 days. He challenged himself and declared it to the world. He not only doubled it, he actually tripled his list to over 30,903 in only 99 days and became the “Master List Builder”.

Now it’s your turn. Decide what it is that you want, and when you want to achieve it by then declare it to the world. Announce it, affirm it and make it evident. You can post your goals and i’ll follow up with you. Go out there and do it. Let’s make things happen.

Hmmh…no one else is on. that’s strange, so I think I might be early or something. I hang up and go about my business and call back in again in 5 minutes. I get the same thing “You are the first caller”. Music plays in the background.

Hmm…this is really strange. There are usualy 5 or 6 people in the mastermind group, so I figure someone should be on the phone. Then I remember, we’re going to be trying out a new webinar software. We had tried it out a couple weeks ago, but had some problems getting everything configured. So we were going to have another go at it. I was excited about being able to try out the new webinar software and just share with my mastermind group. So I look through some old emails to find the link to this new software. Nope, no one is there either.

Well, I hang up, wait another 10 minutes and call in a third time…Still no one else is on. By this time, I’m pretty frustrated. I was all excited about getting on the phone and doing the mastermind and trying out this webinar software. And I can’t get the phone to call through. So I wrote an email to the mastermind group outlining the phone number, pin code, and link that I had tried to use to get in contact with them.

A couple hours later I receive an email back from one of the people in my mastermind group. Let’s say the phone number was 530-298-45xx and the pin code was 89537#. So what had I been dialing the whole time? 9537#. No wonder why I couldn’t get through. I was missing a number in the code. It was so frustrating. I was trying so hard to get through and no matter how hard I would have tried doing the same thing over and over I would never had connected with my mastermind group.

How true is that in our daily lives? We keep trying to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Do you know the quote?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
-Albert Einstein

Just that one number was keeping me from getting through. So what I could have done was check the phone number and pin code again to make sure I had it right. Different action, different results. But the most important thing is taking the right action to get the right place; not just taking random actions and looking for different results.

So the next question is how do we take the right action?

Tune in next time to find out how we can take the right action.