Troy's Times - November 1st, 2005
Hi Friend! IN THIS ISSUE
“It is not important How we come to the events in our lives, but how we Deal with those events”- Troy
This week’s article: To realize the value of one year, ask the student who has failed his final exam To realize the value of one month, ask the mother who has given birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of one day, ask the daily wage laborer with ten kids to feed. To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of one minute, ask the person who has missed the plane. To realize the value of one second, ask the person who has survived an accident. To realize the value of a millisecond, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics. To realize the value of time, in any increment, ask the person who spent 12.5 years as a slave to drugs, followed by 7.5 years as an incarcerated felon. Time is our most valuable commodity bar none. It is, hands down, the most precious thing we have, yet it is the one thing with which we are most often wasteful. You can’t recycle it, regain it, rejuvenate it, rediscover it, or reuse it. Once it’s gone, it's gone. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't have relaxation time, hobby time, lay on the couch and read a book time, or sit in the sun and do absolutely nothing time. It's all about balance in our lives. What I'm saying is that you need to respect and cherish it as you would any precious gift and realize that every moment that you are not using it to live the life you deserve is dead time wasted. There was a guy that I knew in prison named Charlie Dotson. Charlie was a good guy as far as a con goes – minded his own business, very respectful of others, never got in anybody’s way, center fielder on my softball team. Charlie and I worked in UNICOR, Federal Prison Industries, a manufacturing facility within the institution. We built furniture. I worked upstairs in the business office. Charlie worked downstairs on the production floor assembling furniture. One day I walked over to the copier and as my copy was running I looked out the big plate glass window in front of me, and on the concrete floor below lay my friend Charlie Dotson, a six-foot pool of blood surrounding his head. Standing over Charlie was another inmate with a four-foot oak table leg that he had used to bash in Charlie's head. Judging by the pool of blood, by the time I saw him, Charlie had been dead for some time. Thirty to forty other inmates stood in a circle around his limp body having witnessed the whole thing. Nobody had lifted a hand to stop what they were seeing. Nobody called a guard. Everyone just walked away knowing that they could be in Charlie’s place the next day, the next hour, the next minute. Charlie lost his life that day because of a 69¢ writing pen. The assailant accused Charlie of walking by his workstation, picking up his 69¢ pen, thus disrespecting him and giving him the right to take Charlie's life. Charlie had a wife of ten years, an eight-year-old daughter, and six weeks left on a six-year prison sentence. In that instant it was all snatched away. A father was lost, a widow was made, and a future vanished into thin air, all over 69¢ pen. I’ve often wondered what unfinished business Charlie had. After all, there were only six short weeks left before the world would be open to him again. Was he waiting for the right moment to tell his wife and daughter how much they really meant to him? Did he look forward to the day, six weeks down the road, that he would be able to start rebuilding those relationships? Was he waiting for the best time, place and circumstances? If he was, he may have missed his opportunity altogether. It gives you something to think about. We’ve all heard the saying, “Live every day as if it is your last,” but how many of us follow it? How many of us, if hit by a bus tomorrow, could say that we had done everything in our power to live the lives we wanted? Would we go to our graves knowing that we had found that career, climbed that mountain, made time for the kids, or died trying? Or would we, instead, make a lot of excuses for why it had never been the perfect time to start? Living the life that you deserve takes diligence. It takes a flat out rejection of dead time. It takes a plan. Personally, I have my own time management tool that keeps me on the path to being the man I want to be. It’s not a planner or PDA. I simply have goals. It’s that easy. I have both short and long-term goals that revolve around every facet of my life, not just my career. Goals for my relationships, my health, vacations, experiences, purchases, everything. Throughout the day, just by habit I ask myself, “Is what you're doing right now, getting you any closer to those goals?” If the answer is no, I change what I'm doing. It's that simple. I never have to refill my pages. I never run out of a battery. My goals are with me twenty-four-seven, emblazoned on the chalkboard of my mind with great big priority exclamation marks next to them. I don’t have to write them down. They’re too important. How could I forget them? Writing something down means that you need a reminder, and needing a reminder means that you are not actively living your life to attain your goals, to be the person you want to be. I look back now at all of the wasted years, from my teens where drugs became the central focal point of my existence, and I look at the days I spent in prison becoming the person that I am today. If I had always known the value of time, what could I have accomplished? If I don’t respect that time now, what will I miss? Of course you will have to make your own goals and priorities, but I want to spend a couple of moments on the tools that you will need to reach them. Before you start envisioning your new Ferrari or house in the hills, make your first goals to yourself. Like I said, time is precious. Spend it on the things that will give you the skills to make all of your other goals a reality – your mind, body, and soul. When I talk about improving your mind, I do not necessarily mean academics, although that direction would certainly foot the bill. I am talking about anything that stimulates you intellectually, expands your knowledge base, or offers a challenge between the ears. Read a book. Write a book. Paint a picture. Take a cooking class. Research a topic you know nothing about. Build a model airplane using step-by-step instructions. Learn a new trade. Your activity may correlate to an overall goal that you are working towards at the time, or it may just be an exercise to keep the brain agile for when you really need it. What's important here is that we charter new waters, challenge the mind, and explore new possibilities. If not stimulated the mind becomes stale, shuts down to the change around it, and in actuality, serves as a hindrance to our advancement and success. It is important to keep your mind sharp to prevent that from happening. They say idle hands are the devil’s playground. I say an idle mind is an invitation for dead time. With the engine now running, it's time to assure that the body and frame are equally up for the task. Your current goals may have nothing to do with your physiology, but your overall health affects every part of your life. You don’t need hours of justification or the depths of self-loathing to inspire you. Just remember, better health makes life easier. It will keep you going when you have to work harder, it will give you the ability to handle stress better, and it will open up new possibilities for enjoying life. As an added benefit, it will get you up those stairs faster. For me it's jogging and weight lifting. For you it could be Yoga, climbing stairs, walking the dog, swimming, basketball, tennis, anything that leads to improving our physical well -being. It is not important what it is, but that we do it as a regular part of our schedule. You have to make it a habit. That is the key! I could no more miss my workout than I could miss breakfast or brushing my teeth before bed each evening. It is part of my daily routine and will become part of yours if given the chance to become a habit, a normal occurrence that requires no thought, just an assumed part of the day. Once it becomes second nature, you won’t even have to talk yourself into it. It will just be another valued part of your day. I do my best thinking, come up with my best ideas while jogging. Some may find jogging to be boring, and prefer competitive sports. I have friends who enjoy the peacefulness of yoga. My parents like the intimacy of holding hands and walking each evening. The venue does not matter, only that we make a choice. You may feel like you are already in good physical condition, but dead time can find you here as well. Challenge yourself. Start somewhere, but as an activity becomes boring or easy, move onto something that pushes your limitations, teaches you new balance, or improves flexibility. Just as with the mind, the body is most easily improved when challenged. Try different activities, those you thought you may never be interested in or that you would be unable to do. Later, when it comes time to meet an important deadline, win a race, or play with the grand kids, you will be ready. While getting the mind and the body on the same page, don’t forget your soul. I am not going to expound upon religious dogma here. That is an individual choice and I will leave you to it. My advice is simply that you continually strive to find your way to your own peace. This may happen through organized religion, meditation, counseling, volunteerism, or spending the day recognizing the little blessings that surround you. Your soul is your guide, your lodestone to taking the right path to becoming the person you want to be. You cannot enjoy a new job if your soul is ill at ease over the way you obtained it. You will not take pleasure in your new physique if you abused yourself to mold it. You will not cherish your success if you selfishly hoard it. In short, you cannot have triumphs of the mind and body without your soul, so nurture it. Think of these three areas of improvement as the necessities that you
will want to have in your backpack as you travel your path. Once you have
these three areas of your life finely tuned and in perpetual motion, you
will find that your goals come more and more easily and the path seems
clearer than ever. You will be alert, spry and at peace and those are
three very good things when you are on a journey. If you invest in yourself
in these three areas, the rest of your goals will seem suddenly attainable
and you will know the satisfaction of never feeling remorse at the passage
of time.
Read
where I was recently featured in Phoenix Magazine as "A Person of
Interest"! - Click to see! Please note that my opinions in all sections are just that- my opinions. Feel free to disagree with them, argue them or dismiss them. As a professional speaker and author, I find that from time to time I offend or upset people. To this I say that I better be offending some people, otherwise I am not doing my job. By making people look at things they are not always comfortable looking at, I expect to ruffle some feathers and welcome your feedback at any time) Featured product for this issue! MY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK- " From Desperation to Dedication: Lessons You Can Bank On"…Click
here to order
Download a free chapter of my book, The Preface is available here - Click to begin! If you live in or near one of the following cities where Troy will be speaking over the next few months, please contact The Evans Groups for details on an opportunity that does not come around often- see Troy present for free!
Sign up for my affiliate program and earn money while you sleep! Click here for details! Commission for booking me - I offer a commission of 10%-20% ($650.00-$1,300.00) for anyone who refers me for speaking engagements and/or bulk product sales. Please contact The Evans Group for details. Subscriber opinions and impressions of this electronic newsletter: I invite subscribers to write me with their questions as well and I will answer them in the next issue. Also readers, I invite you to send in profiles of yourself and how you have used the information from my electronic newsletter, products or speech in your personal and/or professional lives. Once a month I will feature one individual for all others to read about!
Note: You are free to reprint any portion of this electronic newsletter as long as the portion remains complete and unaltered, and the “About the Author” section is included. About the Author- Troy Evans is a professional speaker and author who resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Pam and his dog Archibald. Troy travels the country delivering keynote presentations, and since his release from prison has taken the corporate and association platforms by storm. Overcoming adversity, adapting to change and pushing yourself to realize your full potential- other speaker’s talk about these issues, Troy has walked them.
|
| |||||||
         | |||||||
