What’s the difference between water and steam?  At 99 degrees water is merely hot, at 100 degrees it turns to steam and can move locomotives.  Just one degree—a one percent change—makes the difference.  While traveling in a car all it takes is a slight movement of the steering wheel that makes the difference in where your end up.

·      Any difference can make a difference!

·      We are often stuck in the idea that changes in our life need to be huge. It seems overwhelming. Therefore, we do not do anything. We just wish, wait and hope. On the other hand, maybe we are stuck in a very comfortable routine. The trick is to realize that the force of inertia (the tendency of bodies at rest to stay at rest) will keep you exactly where you are unless you do something. That something may not even relate to what you want.

-You have probably heard of taking a big goal and chunking it down into smaller goals. This is a great idea. However, sometimes we do not even know where to begin. May I suggest you start with A DAY?

·      I probably don’t have 50 years to see change…but I have a day……and if I can take control of 1 day, perhaps I can control the next one…and then the next one.

·      The purpose of knowledge is to make changes, and you can make changes that will help you improve.

·      Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not real…….so, today is my life and my decisions are creating it.  A day is a gift from God, so how do I address, or unwrap this gift.  …………………….What can I do about my life NOW

There's a cat in our neighborhood that makes an appearance around the same time each day outside my office window. She has a routine that looks something like this:

She paces slowly to the edge of the woods, then carefully along the edge of the woods, and back down the side where there’s some wild grass area. Next, she slowly stalks along the back of our storage shed, around the side, and makes a beeline to the back of our house. Finally, she walks all around our deck and the bushes, then she’s off.

This happens two to three times each day. I call it her “hunting trail.”

·      She’s tenacious. When she is walking this trail, she is intense, instinctively looking for a break in the norm as she goes about her routine. When she sees a disruption — some unlucky creature jumping out of the grass — she pounces.

She knows how to put herself in the right place at the right time to have the best chance for success.

Just like this cat, we each need “hunting trails” — daily routines and practices that put us in a position where we’re likely to experience creative insights. Many people don’t build these kinds of hunting trails. Instead, they wander aimlessly, waiting for an opportunity, some “mouse” to simply wander across their path.

You need to identify your hunting trails and commit to walking them often, paying attention to what you observe and preparing to pounce.

Excellence: Being the best we can be with God's grace. Excellence refers to pursuing and doing the best we can with the gifts and abilities God gives, giving our best to the glory of God.   Our world is becoming more and more demanding of excellence, yet strangely, so few are willing to offer it. Excellence is never an accident; it is always a choice. It is the result of high intention, deliberate planning, and exceptional effort. Quite simply, the difference between excellence and mediocrity is effort. Excellence matters to God because he is excellent. If excellence matters to God then it should matter to us who live in the world that he designed.

·      Excellence is the highest quality you are presently capable of.  It is not just a concept but a journey through life.

Self-confidence is much more than displaying cockiness…it is more than an outward show of arrogance.

·      Self-confidence is an inner persuasion that your difference is divine.

 Honor is the willingness to celebrate the difference of another…self-confidence is the willingness to celebrate your own difference.  Self-confidence is the fact that you have been given something that others do not necessarily have.

·      Self-confidence is understanding the fact that the blend and the integrated qualities that God has brought together to create YOU are unlike anything else he has ever made before.  When you were born God made a FIRST…never before and never again will there be another YOU.

·      Self-confidence creates a climate. 

 -Similarity creates comfort but your difference creates reward.   The Bible is a book about Self-confidence……..it tells us that God created something in you that is different, important, enabling, and identifiable.  Self-confidence is recognizing those things.

People label you. People stick something on you, based on their perception of you. From the hospital; to the home, to the hallowed halls of learning. The school has become America’s official labeling factory. The real “kicker” is the people who label us in school are “professionals.” Up to that point, only amateurs did. In school, we learned our intelligence is measured by letters. The best got A’s and the worst got F’s. The majority got C’s (that was me). 
Some of the labels you receive will not have much to do with you, rather people you choose to hang around with. Some of them will be because of the color of your skin, others will be because of how you appear or how you dress. Some will be because of the neighborhood you are from and/or live in now, others because of the lifestyle you choose.  

However, please remember this: labels are a person’s opinion of you, based on what they see and perceive. There is more to you than meets the eye. There is more to you than what they see, hear, or even touch. Therefore, don’t let their labeling determine who you are or what you can accomplish. 

“Don’t let someone determine your horsepower by the amount of your exhaust. “ - John Mason  

Opportunity is all around you. What matters is where you put your focus. Ask yourself, “Where should my focus be?” consider focusing on the thing you do right because what you focus on creates strength and momentum.  

I have observed and learned many things after 33 years of speaking, traveling, and basically just having relationships. One is that everyone knows a lot about something and could be a very useful resource to someone, some company, or some customer on that subject. The other thing is that most people take what they know for granted and therefore don’t consider themselves gifted in that subject. 

Life is a journey and every journey has a destination.  Everybody ends up somewhere in life. Vision is ending up somewhere on purpose. A vision is born in the soul of a man or woman who is consumed with the difference between what is and what could be.  If you are frustrated or brokenhearted about the way things are in your life, in light of the way you believe things could be, you are a candidate for vision. 

Every journey begins with a first step.  And the first step in becoming unstoppable in your life is taking full responsibility for what happens there.  We must first and foremost look in the mirror and know that the buck starts and stops here.  So to sum it up in one sentence: You are responsible!  You are responsible for everything that happens in your life. 

For everything you are happy with and everything you are not, you must take responsibility. You simply must accept the fact that everything that is around you right now is the direct effect of who you are, of who you were to that very moment and decisions that you made either yesterday or many years ago.  The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for it.

Every day I am made more and more aware of the power of the human will to accomplish, dream, focus, and create a positive or negative environment.

Do you want to sizzle and not just fizzle?  Do you want to go up like a rocket and not down like a rock?   You are about to embark on a journey through which you will explore four parts of yourself that perhaps you’ve rarely tested.  What has to take place to distract you from your dream, to get your eyes off your goal, or to keep you from achieving them? This is where your stability or lack thereof ends. I ask again, “Is it easy to let the air out of your sails?” 

When the space shuttle blasts off on its next mission, people come from all over the country to Kennedy Space Center to witness it. Why? Because people love a great take-off. They want to see the fire, sparks and witness the power of several million pounds of thrust. A good beginning is great. A great take-off is wonderful, but after the take-off, there is still work to be done, until the mission is accomplished. 

I must warn you: understanding these four principles could be potentially life-changing.  It was for me.