The Dart Maker Blog

I knew I should have hit the ball more to the right.

The tee shot felt good, but then the wind caught it. Slightly at first, then a little more as it began its downward flight. Sure enough, the ball landed within the group of trees off to the left of the fairway.

As I got into the cart with Gary, my good friend and golfing partner, we talked about trees and what a nuisance they can be. Should I chip around them and burn a stroke to get a better shot at the green on the next swing, or go for the green through the trees with the hope of punching out cleanly on the other side?

“Trees are 90% air,” he said with a grin. “If you pick a spot through the trees, take dead aim, and follow through with your shot, most times you’ll get through OK.”

How true it is in business too.

We’re all faced with “trees”– difficult business challenges– every day. You need to fire someone. A key client isn’t paying you on time. A new, aggressive competitor is coming to town. What to do?

We can be frozen in our fear of the situation and its ramifications. Many times, however, we do far more damage by doing nothing than by acting on any of the choices we had.

You need to fire someone, but there’s no one else to take her place and you don’t have the time to conduct a search, so you give her one more chance. You have a collection problem with a key client, but you don’t want to upset them by asking for the money, so you let it slide for a little bit longer. You learn that an aggressive competitor is coming to town, and you know it will mean changes in your organization, but you put off addressing the issue until you know they’re actually coming.

Problems don’t go away. Unfortunately, the mere presence of problems can stop even the best people in their tracks from time to time.

When you’re confronted with a difficult situation, ask yourself a basic question: What am I really afraid of?

Most fear only exists in our mind. Small issues can get blown out of proportion, and we can create oversized mental pictures that are ridiculous when we compare them to the facts.

You can re-word the question in several ways. What do I fear most? What do I fear in the future? What do I fear right now? What deeper problems can I avoid by taking action sooner rather than later? Reflective thinking over good, sound questions like these can give you clarity, and allow you to focus on the real issues.

We all experience fear at one time or another. The only true way to overcome fear is to confront it. How you confront it is what determines whether or not you will be successful. Courage to confront your fear is crucial to success. And, like success itself, you build this courage one step at a time, through small incremental changes that reach to the core of your belief system. No great castles or monuments were built until someone placed one block of stone on top of another.

Back on the course, I made my decision. I selected a 7-iron, took dead aim at the green through the least branch-laden path I could find and over the tallest tree, and swung with confidence. The ball sailed through the branches, over the tree, and landed squarely on the green.

“90% air,” I said, smiling.

What big issues are you putting off right now? What actions need to be taken now instead of next week or next month? What are the ramifications of waiting? And what good things could happen if you acted swiftly, decisively, and completely?

Take action. Don’t wait. Put your fears aside, take dead aim, and do the thing that must be done.

Bill Guertin, The 800-Pound Gorilla, was one of the youngest licensed Radio broadcasters in the state of Illinois at age 16. His 25+ years of real-world, on-the-street experiences in broadcast sales, service sales and marketing have given him a broad understanding of how and why people do the things they do.

He is currently the Director of Market Development for Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL, and Chief Enthusiasm Officer of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a professional speaking and consulting company in sales, customer service and marketing. He can be reached at (815) 935-3272, or on the Web at http://www.The800PoundGorilla.com.

He can be reached at Bill@The800PoundGorilla.com.

To understand employee motivation, we first need to know exactly what it means. The most common definition of motivation states that motivation is the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction. It has also been defined as the inner force that drives us to do something.

If a person is to a job and do it good, they need some sort of employee motivation or motivation factor behind it. In most cases it is the responsibility of the boss or supervisor to motivate his or her employees. When employees are motivated they are more likely to enjoy what they do and therefore will produce better result from their work. Therefore, the manager or boss is to motivate the employees then he or she should also be motivated.

It has been found that employee motivation is the key to performance improvement. There are several factors that motivate people to do good work. One of the leading motivating factors in a job is money. Those people who are being paid well for their services are more likely to do better work then those who are not. It has been found in the United States that people who are being underpaid for the work they do are working up the level that they could be. They are too busy thinking about their pay and wishing they were getting more. If they were getting paid for their time and effort then maybe they would be motivated to do better work.

You can also look at employee motivation from a psychological point of view. According to a psychologist named Maslow, there are five different levels to motivation. These levels are based on people’s needs. These needs include, physiological, safety, social, ego, and self- actualizing. Maslow argued that lower level needs had to be satisfied before the next higher level need would motivate employees. There are other psychologists who believe that there are other factors that lead to motivation amongst people. These include, motivators or intrinsic factors, such as achievement and recognition, produce job satisfaction. Hygiene or extrinsic factors, such as pay and job security, produce job dissatisfaction.

James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest.
Read more at http://www.motivation-central.info

In 1965, a chemist working to develop an ulcer drug accidentally discovered a substance 200 times sweeter than sugar. The FDA initially shunned this substance because it caused seizures and brain tumors in lab animals.

In 1981, the FDA allowed this brain tumor and seizure-causing substance to begin both sweetening and poisoning our food supply, pharmaceuticals, and children’s’ vitamins. Banned in children’s products in Europe, the chemical, aspartame, is now a big part of America’s diet craze. This is despite the fact that it accounts for more than 75% of the complaints reported in the FDA’s Adverse Reaction Monitoring system. (http://www.aspartame.ca/page_a3.html and http://www.dorway.com/jwnoasp.html)

Aspartame, once in the body, breaks down into various chemicals. One is the same toxin you get from a fire ant bite. Another is the smelly formaldehyde in which your science teacher stored animals to dissect. Yet another is methanol, the same main ingredient as in Prohibition Era moonshine - the same moonshine that was notorious for causing blindness. How many mothers, who would never think of giving their children moonshine, have stocked their cabinets with any of the now 5,000 products that contain aspartame? (http://www.dorway.com/betty/environ.txt)

For those of us who struggle with anxiety or depression because of low serotonin levels, aspartame is especially bad news. This chemical additive wreaks further havoc by depleting tryptophan levels. Tryptophan is necessary in the production of serotonin. Without it, you will suffer more frequent attacks and more severe depression! (http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/aspartame.htm)

For more information on aspartame and depression and anxiety, visit http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/aspartame.htm.

Heidi Whitaker is an author and speaker on the subject of nutritional support of autoimmune disease. To read more articles by Heidi, vistit: http://autoimmune.myblogsite.com/blog. For information on how you can join one of Heidi’s teleseminars, visit http://www.20again.com/teleseminar2.htm.

When most people hear the words American Indian, visions of warriors on horses, feathers, or an ‘Indian Princess’ dance vividly in their heads. Instead, who they are is a culture of people who traditionally educate their children through oral traditions taught from generation to generation, day-to-day life, and sacred ceremonies that included song, dance and stories told to them by elders and spiritual leaders in the community.

To give you a better look at American Indian life today I will switch my focus over to the Lakota Nation of South Dakota. Home to such leaders like Black Elk, Crazy Horse and Fools Crow, the land in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge reservation is now the place of a people who remain strong in spirit like their warrior ancestors while trying to live in an economically depressed condition where the unemployment rate can be as high as 85% at times. Many Lakota people on the Pine Ridge reservation live in government housing (or worse), while the children there attend boarding schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools were originally set up to try to civilize the ’savages’. The children were forced to separate from their families and community, while at the same time were forbidden to express themselves through their native culture and language. Changes have been made slowly over more recent years- allowing parental involvement and introducing traditional teachings into the school’s curriculum.

Because of the acts done to the American Indian people like genocide and attempts at taking their culture and traditions away, many generations have suffered emotional, mental, spiritual and physical damage. To the Lakota people these four things alone are important to rearing stable, self-sufficient children who can then go on to live productive lives as adults. The damage done through genocide and the rape of their culture didn’t occur just once, but slowly and over time. From generation to generation they have struggled to live in two worlds- that of their people and the one which they were forced into.

Across the board the rates for depression, suicide, many physical diseases and crime are greater for American Indians than they are for any other race. The rate of suicide among American Indians age 10-14 is almost 4 times higher than it is for young people from other ethnic groups. Being raised by parents and grandparents who have endured the repression of their culture over many years definitely has an effect on the youth in their communities.

Of course there is always free will and the ability for each person to make their own choices regarding how they live their lives, but under such circumstances as these, living with a lack of stability and balance, how can these young people make good choices for themselves? I believe that it cannot be done unless they are given something to stand on- a stable foundation for them to fall back on and begin from.

Because the American Indian culture has always been richly-infused with their teachings and spiritual way of life, many psychologists along with native leaders are coming together to bring back the connections for the youth that they so desperately need. This can foster well-being and help to prevent such mental disorders like depression and suicide among the youth in these communities.

In Porcupine, South Dakota, the Children First Corp. run by Ethleen Iron Cloud Two Dogs, is using mainstream treatments in conjunction with traditional American Indian methods. The inipi (purification ceremony) is a sacred ceremony for purifying the mind, body and spirit. By going through this ceremony it gives them a stronger foundation to start with before problems can arise.

The Lakota naming ceremony is traditionally done when a baby is born. They are given a Lakota name that “anchors them to the earth” and connects them to their culture and their family in a deep way.

For children who have suffered more traumatic events like abuse, their spirit can become damaged and actually leave their body, like a disconnection of sorts. In these cases they would hold a ceremony to call back the spirit so it can re-connect with the mind and body.

People like Ethleen Iron Cloud Two Dogs along with mental health professionals, volunteers and Lakota people are slowly connecting the children back with the traditional ways and it has been shown to pay off in recent years. By giving them instruction in the schools about the history and culture of their people along with the spiritual ceremonies and teachings of generations past, they are infusing the children with the stability that they so desperately need for prospering in today’s world.

Once the children can integrate daily living with native traditions so important to their culture and by getting help and support from the adults in the community by fostering that strong family bond, they can keep their mind, body, emotions and physical self healthy and the rates for depression and suicide among them will lesson greatly.

Lisa Hoskins is a jewelry designer who owns Animal Spirit Jewelry. She has studied animals her whole life and is now blessed from Spirit to be able to create jewelry based upon the spiritual principles revolving around animal totems and guides. You can find her website at http://www.animalspiritjewelry.com