Life Mapping with Jesus

Life Mapping with Jesus Finding Your Place in God’s Eternal Plan

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Copyright Š 2014 foG. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting: WestBow Press A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan 1663 Liberty Drive Bloomington, IN 47403 www.westbowpress.com 1 (866) 928-1240 Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-2811-4 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-4908-2812-1 (e) Library of Congress Control Number: 2014903698 Printed in the United States of America.

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/13/2014

“We live our lives as if we were involved in a series of disasters rather than in an orderly process to achieve the natural results we desire.” – Admiral Bidcoff

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra

“And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, ‘Moses, Moses.’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’” – Exodus 3:4

Table of Contents The Gathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Life Mapping Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Beliefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 To Do List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 How To. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Sample Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Suggested Reading List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

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Chapter 1 – The Gathering

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uiet! Can we hear it? What calls our hearts? Something deep inside is stirring. Will we listen, will we understand, and will we act? If we are ready we will!

We are amazing creatures! No one else has our unique traits, skills, abilities and capacity for acquiring wisdom. With them we can do anything, but what will we do?

To put the question another way: What is the most important thing we will do in our lifetimes? Some might answer; successfully raise children, have an enjoyable career or find the cure for cancer.

These are all good answers. But, are they really the most important?

Will they bring us happiness and peace of mind?

Mencius, a Chinese Confucian and contemporary of Aristotle, was once asked an interesting question by his disciple Kung-too.

“All are equally men, but some are great men, and some are little men----how is this?”

Mencius replied, “Those who follow that part of themselves which is great are great men; those who follow that part which is little are little men. Let a man first stand fast in the supremacy of the nobler part of his constitution, and the inferior part will not be able to take it from him. It is simply this which makes the great man.” Thus we must discover our nobler part, or as Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said, “Let each become all that he was created capable of being.” “Jesus saith 1

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unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” - John 4:34, should we do less?

Life Mapping is a process that helps us reach our full potential.

It helps us remove the conflicts that separate us from becoming the person we were created to be. These conflicts exist because of the inconsistencies in what we think about, what we believe, and ultimately what we do. It is these conflicts that confine and confuse us and keep us from becoming the person we are capable of becoming.

When the conflicts are gone, we feel whole. It is a healing process that allows us to reach our nobler part. We learn who we are and how we fit into this world. It is a process that calls those seeking their nobler part. It is “The Gathering” of our nobler parts.

What have we lost?

Have we noticed that Americans have become angry? For more than half of the twentieth century we could walk down the street and receive pleasant greetings from almost everyone. Advertisements featured smiling people. Early television was dominated by shows like Ozzie and Harriet. Ozzie always had a smile on his face, even when he was mischievous. Sometime during the period from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s, our mood changed. Was it the Vietnam War? Are we angry with ourselves for being in it or losing it? Are we angry that some of our heroes were assassinated, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King?

Whatever the reason, notice the results. Start looking at advertising, listening to some of the hard driving modern music, the way people drive their cars, or the looks people give us when we walk down the street. As Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew put it, “The thing I notice (with today’s ballplayers) is that they don’t seem to be having as much fun as we used to.” Even our high priced entertainers seem 2

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mad at the world. Many of them act out this feeling in the way they perform and conduct their lives. It is not a pretty picture. If we have to be tough to survive, that will be the image we project.

Madison Avenue calls it attitude! Is this how a civilized society should act? Why are we so angry? Why do we fly off the handle when things don’t go our way? Isn’t the average American better off now then during the 1930s? Maybe some people feel guilty they have so much. Maybe our sincere desire to do a good job has diminished.

Maybe, we now expect people to look out for themselves, so we must be tough and look out for ourselves. Could our anger be a result of a feeling that no one else cares about us? Are we alone? Is it isolationism at its worst?

David Myers, psychologist from Hope College in Michigan, tells us that when it comes to happiness, “External circumstances matter surprisingly little, whether you’re wealthy or physically disabled matter so much less than you’d guess.” He researched thousands of studies on happiness to determine who is happy and why. The results of his work are found in his book The Pursuit of Happiness.

Happy people should exhibit happy behavior. The average American’s behavior during the last fifty years does not suggest that we are happy.

This is true even though we have more of the external trappings and generally better circumstances than those living in the prior fifty years. Thus, works like The Pursuit of Happiness are leading us toward the answer. We must look within ourselves if we are to find happiness. We must change our attitudes. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” - Proverbs 17:22.

Where is our Vision?

America has lost its way. We no longer have a vision of our future, nor the visionaries who could lead us to it. Things are changing so 3

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rapidly that most of us do not take the time to look past the crisis we are currently facing. Survival so preoccupies us that we run from the beast that chases rather than toward the goal of future happiness. If we are to find happiness, it will be a vision that serves as the beacon to lead us there. But who will create this vision?

People feel lost and dissatisfied with their lives. Mothers are juggling careers and families, students are graduating without a sense of a career path, and the baby boomers are turning sixty-five unable to see the meaning in their lives. The Life Mapping process is a tool that is desperately needed in America today. During the past fifty years, divorce rates have risen, adolescent violence has increased, corporate crime has become routine and the number of people living in poverty continues to rise, uncontrolled. This is only the tip of the iceberg, the part we can readily see. How could we ever really know the misery and desperation people are feeling, just below the surface they let us see? People have no safe place for their visions, except deep within their own hearts, the only place no one else can enter and destroy it. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.� - John 16:33, this is the vision that will lead us out of our hopeless state.

Our past and our future.

Understanding who we are, who we are capable of becoming and how we fit into this world will require us to step back and look at the bigger picture. We need to understand that we are dependent upon the delicate balances in nature. If one small element, such as oxygen, were taken out of the mix it would mean the end of humanity.

We must also think long range and globally. What will the long-term results be, generations into the future, of the world we are 4

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creating? No longer can one country or one continent ignore the rest of the world when planning its future. International organizations must learn to work together for the common good of all humanity.

This will happen when enough individuals around the world unite behind a common cause. Governments are slow to change. Usually, change occurs only after a majority of the population demands it.

Are we going to be part of the population that demands this change?

The history of humanity is filled with ideas. As we study these ideas we begin to see a trend. Concern for the development of humanity was the theme that ran through the times of Abraham, Moses, the Vedas, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, St. Augustine, Mohammed, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rene Decartes, William Law, Benjamin Franklin, David Hume, Immuel Kant, Thomas Paine, Joseph Smith, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abraham Lincoln, Soren Kierkegaard, Henry David Thoreau, and Gandhi.

We can’t let the long list overwhelm us. The point is that even though the outward appearance of people’s lives improved because of technological advancements, the development of humanity was their primary focal point. Principles such as honesty, loyalty, humility and respect were stressed. It is sometime in the 1960’s that things began to change. The pace of life began to quicken. People were forced to make more decisions in a single day than their parents made in a month or their great-grandparents made in a whole year.

The ideas that grounded those past generations begin to blur, as sound Principles were no longer passed from one generation to the next. We have forgotten what God told us about His commandments in Deuteronomy 6:7, “thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.”

Our newest generation is forced to deal with this ever-quickening pace without the benefit of the Principles that helped their ancestors make the tough choices life forces upon us. In contrast, current ideas 5

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are focused more on having more, looking better, being more efficient, appearing smarter, acquiring skills or just plain winning, at any cost. Just win baby! Just do it! The more we emphasize winning, the more losers we create. Losers, who need to figure out a way to win, next time. The result of the wave this kind of thinking creates is devastating.

I believe that this wave also leads us away from our nobler part.

As we begin to do whatever it takes to win, we find that we have deviated from the inner blueprint, which guides us to our nobler part. This inner blueprint has been given many names; conscious, intuition, soul, spirit, karma, aura or Tao. But God tells us, “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” - Isaiah 30:21. Not following our inner blueprint leads to deviations that create conflicts. We no longer see ourselves as the noble person we had hoped to become. The wave begins to build as our sub-conscious mind leads us to select new methods that support our new image of ourselves. Each day we move farther away from the person we were born to become. Each day we are less happy with the person we are becoming. We can no longer allow ourselves the time to think about the conflict…it is now too painful. We are afraid to be alone with our thoughts, so, we listen to music, watch television, we immerse ourselves in work or play, sometimes all at once, anything to keep our minds busy.

Will this work? It will not work! Our sub-conscious minds are still able to feel the conflict and we remain disturbed. Only now, we aren’t sure why. We have the big house, the fancy car and the great job. But we aren’t satisfied. So, we start looking for answers in all the wrong places. We get a divorce, change companies, yell at the kids, we start drinking or smoking or snorting. When all the 6

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time the answer lay locked within us. If only we will stop the noise and commotion long enough to look inside for the answer. I believe Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a British writer and lexicographer, referred to this problem when he wrote, “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.” We can now ask ourselves this question: “Are we becoming the people we were created to be?” If not, we must do something about it, now!

This is where Life Mapping comes into play. It takes us from where we are to where we want to be. It is a process that helps us put our lives into perspective. It takes us through the steps necessary for us to find the answers that lie within us. Life Mapping helps us stop the noise and see beyond the superficial world of today, to a life of substance with deeper, clearer values. We create a vision of the people we really are destined to become. This vision will lead us to change the daily Activities, which will define our lives. If we have been trustworthy in every Activity involving our neighbors, our actions have defined us as trustworthy people. Once our Activities are in alignment with our inner blueprint, we begin to live a life that we can define as successful.

What is our inner blueprint? It is our private unique internal plan for our lives. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” - Jeremiah 1:5. This plan, if we choose to follow it, is the one God saw for us before we were even created. It doesn’t change but our understanding of it does. The more we learn to listen and understand it, the closer we will be to living it and experiencing the joy associated with that alignment.

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Twenty years ago I was in management with one of the largest insurance companies in the world. I used the basic Life Mapping techniques with all of the people I was managing. This group of individuals rose from 50th to 1st in sales and service in our region and from 1150th to 38th in the company over a nine-year period. This was accomplished in a manner consistent with the integrity that grew out of the core Beliefs and Principles of the group. We resisted the pressure to shortcut our Principles in order to receive instant recognition, preferring instead to hold fast to the Belief that our devotion to correct Principles would prove successful, in the long run. We were always near the bottom of month long promotion lists. They are terribly disruptive to normal operations. However, by the end of the year we were always near the top of the lists. Daily dedication to normal Activities produces the desired results over the long run. Those normal Activities seem less than spectacular in the short run, but they have a compounding effect that produces extraordinary outcomes.

The inevitable result of the Life Mapping process is evolution.

This evolutionary process begins to change the way we relate to life in general. Financial success begins to take a back seat to the need to become ever more fully human. The result is a more peaceful life.

The wonders of nature become more evident. There no longer is a need to acquire things. Sharing develops into an enjoyable passion.

Relationships become more rewarding. Life Mapping is the tool that opens the lines of communication, which leads to rewarding and fulfilling relationships. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.� - Psalms 37:23, and we will delight in His way, as we evolve on the path to our nobler part.

Ultimately, even the most successful life ends. Living a life that we can define as successful also means enjoying the journey, as well as having fewer regrets when the journey ends. This reminds me of 8

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the story of Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896). He was the Swedish chemist and engineer who invented dynamite in 1866 and made a fortune selling the formula. When his brother died, the newspaper ran Alfred’s obituary by mistake. When Alfred read the obituary he was shocked to see how he would be remembered. He didn’t want to be remembered as the inventor of mass destruction, so, he bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize. What will our legacy be? We are capable of reaching our destiny and that would truly be a wonderful legacy!

Choices.

We can take the world as it comes to us and conform to that reality or we can identify our dreams, work to bring them to life and help the world change into a better place for all humanity. Each of us sees the world through the filter of our own lives. This means that reality is the sum of all our individual experiences. Reality is one large puzzle and each of us is but one piece. But, the puzzle is not complete without all the pieces. This is why every person is important in the final analysis. John Donne (1572-1631) once wrote, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. . . Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

We are part of humanity. We will not be complete until all of humanity is whole. We should work to eliminate the waste of human life that is so common today by finding our destiny and helping others do the same. Leave us not squander Donne’s insight.

“Like the shadow of a tree, our influence often falls where we are not.”—Anonymous So, we see that we are not only part of the whole of nature, but we 9

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are also one piece of the puzzle of humanity. We must not only learn to live in harmony with these realities but we need to work to protect and develop their growth. We must each seek opportunities to unite humanity and resolve situations that are divisive. “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” - Matthew 5:9.

God wants a family to share eternity with and the bigger picture is that He planned it from the beginning. He has invited all of us.

But, seeing the future, He knows that not all of us will accept His invitation. “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” - 2 Timothy 1:9.

Our suffering and death in this decaying world saddens Him, as it would any father. “Jesus wept.” - John 11:35 Now that we have seen the bigger picture and humanity’s purpose, it is time to look at our individual purpose.

Charting our course.

We start by visualizing our lives as trips into some unknown country, where every turn has three or four forks in the road. When we are born, we are given an inner blueprint or map to follow. This blueprint determines the place we start our journey, like the city where we are born. If nothing else influences us, we will follow the predetermined route and know which fork to take, every time. As we take our first few steps, we begin to feel the influence of our environment. The people, places and things we encounter begin to affect our decisions. The possible routes or lives we could live become unlimited. Each fork provides a whole new series of possibilities. Now, comes the difficult part. Some of those lives are filled with happiness and fulfillment, while others bring only misery and regrets. How are we to know which forks to take?

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We can attack this problem from two basic points of view. We can accept life as it comes to us and deal with the forks as they appear or we can develop instruments that will lead us toward the one life we believe will bring us our desired outcomes. Most people take the first option. They live not by choice, but by default. As Admiral Bidcoff, the man responsible for coordinating emergency services for the city of San Francisco, puts it, “We live our lives as if we were involved in a series of disasters rather than in an orderly process to achieve the natural results we desire.” Some might escape this process and still find happiness. But most will endure a life filled with regrets. Others will find that a small decision made years before has forced them onto a route with no possible chance for happiness. This is what Life Mapping is all about. We can take the inner blueprint we were born with and use it to create an extraordinary life. The one we deserve.

What our lives are now is not as important as what our lives will become. We must see our future and live it. “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” - Isaiah 64:4, for God has created a joyous future for us.

Where do our choices lead us?

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), an American psychologist, once said, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” Being in alignment with our inner blueprint brings the peace of which Maslow speaks. This is why so many people think of their lives as meaningless. Without the peace that living in alignment with our inner blueprint brings, we experience boredom, angst and/or unhappiness. When we achieve this alignment we stop running to some unknown destination. “If you don’t know where you are going, 11

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you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra. So, we need to listen to Yogi, and allow our purpose to summons us instead to make music or paint or write, or toward whatever destiny that is calling us. The world is waiting for us to fulfill our part in the grand play.

It is easy to be fooled into thinking that having fun is our purpose.

When we are wealthy enough, we can have fun all day long! But fun with no purpose soon loses its allure.

How many famous people have decided to commit suicide because they discovered that fun just isn’t enough? Listen to King Solomon speak about this problem, “And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11. Fun is what makes the journey enjoyable but without a journey there is little fun for most of us. When we learn our purpose and start living the journey, we need to make sure that we don’t forget to have fun along the way. But fun alone will not bring us peace. Only living our destiny will achieve that.

Steve Martin’s character in Leap of Faith is a fake preacher/healer.

He takes his fancy show on the road bilking the bumpkins in towns all over America. He is having fun, but seems somehow unfulfilled.

Then one day a miracle happens. He cures a crippled boy and brings rain to a drought-ridden town. He is so surprised and moved by the experience that he decides to leave everything and everyone behind.

During the last few hours leading up to his hitching a ride out of town in a truck, we feel him changing as he realizes that he had not been fulfilling his destiny. As he sits in the cab of the truck, we see the pure joy and freedom he experiences as he begins to live his life in alignment with his inner blueprint. He is off to create the life he 12

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was destined to live. How will we feel when we begin living the life we were destined to live? Remember, the world is waiting for us!

We all need help finding our gifts. Will a completed Life Map help us find our gifts? Imagine our heading off to visit our best friend at her new home, without directions? The right map would be indispensable. The map would provide us with a variety of routes from which to choose. We might pick the most direct route or the most scenic for our journey.

The odds of reaching our friend’s home, and enjoying the trip, would be substantially increased. A Life Map is a map of our life, with our basic route identified. There will be changes along the way but having the Life Map will give us a much better chance of success in finding our gifts, enjoying our lives, and fulfilling our destinies.

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University of California, has recently conducted a research project studying strategies for achieving goals. Her research found that people who wrote down their goals, had action plans for there achievement, shared them with a friend and sent weekly updates to that friend were on average 77% more likely to accomplish their stated goals. Yes, written plans do work! Yes, a completed and followed Life Map will work!

We all want to become successful. We are born with this trait.

One of the problems in achieving results is defining success. A Life Map will help us define our meaning of success. It will unlock the inner peace that is within us. A Life Map is our personal plan for reaching our unique destinies. The Life Mapping process will take us through the steps necessary to determine what really matters to us. Incredibly, most of us spend most of our lives doing things we really don’t want to do. This is true of every aspect of our lives. This world is moving so quickly that we continue to let circumstances 13

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or other people decide our everyday Activities for us. These are the very Activities that define our lives. We seem to find the whole thing too difficult to deal with, and so, we watch our lives as if we were watching a play, unable to control it, nor change it. This is why Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) once wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be one of those people. We need to take the time to think about our lives and create a life we will love.

We can shift directions now and create a new life from the inside out.

We must not become one of the lost souls who look back on their life and says, “This was not the life I was supposed to live!”

Great achievements and lives are built on a sound foundation of dreams. They are created in the mind first, on paper second, and finally in the daily Activities that lead to their accomplishment.

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” - Philippians 2:13, what higher calling could we have? Wise people take their dreams of the world and their tomorrows, and begin living them immediately. We can’t wait for a perfect situation before we change. We must first change our daily Activities, and then the world and our tomorrows will follow. Which is more difficult…to stop what we are doing, develop a Life Map of our future and begin living it today, or to accept life as it is with the pain and regrets that will surely follow for the majority of us? These are two very different paths. On which path does a person truly suffer more? Let us take the advice of Robin Williams’ character in the movie Dead Poet’s Society when he tells his students to make their lives extraordinary, to gather their rosebuds while they may and to seize the day. Carpe Diem!

Imagination.

Our Life Map begins with an exploration of our own imagination.

Instead of discovering new worlds, we discover our place in this 14

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world. We learn to define ourselves, and our roles in this world.

This part of the process requires us to understand our own Belief system and the list of Principles worthy of our nobler part. Why is this important? Most of us would describe ourselves as truthful and we are truthful most of the time. However, occasionally it is not to our benefit to tell the truth. This is when we are truly tested. This is when we are truly defined as truthful or liars. Without solid Principles in place, supported by Beliefs, we will lie when it benefits us. We will then be defined as liars. Our conscious mind may hold on to the false opinion that we are truthful, but our subconscious mind discerns the deception.

We have created a conflict. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” - Isaiah 57:21, and there can be no peace while this conflict exists. This conflict works to destroy the foundation our lives are built upon. We think less of ourselves and our subconscious mind begins to sabotage us. If we make a habit of lying, we begin to find lying less and less painful, until one day even our conscious mind concedes and we begin to rationalize that it’s acceptable because everybody lies. It was the action in direct conflict with our Belief that began this negative spiral. Keeping our actions in alignment with our Beliefs is at the heart of the Life Mapping process. What are the steps?

• To learn to remove the conflicts in our lives, we begin by understanding our own Belief system.

• We develop our list of Principles, each supported by one of our own Beliefs.

• Next, we establish Goals in every area of our lives, making sure that these Goals do not create a conflict with any of our Beliefs or Principles.

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• Then we create a list of Activities for each Goal. These are the Activities that are required for us to achieve each Goal.

• Finally, we create a To Do List, which is made up of the Activities currently needed to take the next step forward on the path to achieving our Goals.

Now our actions will not only lead us to our goals, but they will begin to define us as the noble person we are becoming. As we live our Life Map, our vision of the future will begin to clarify. It is as if we have been walking in a dense fog, unable to clearly see our futures when our Life Map leads us out of the fog, and our vision becomes clearer, which allows us to see more changes we need to make on the path to improving our Life Map and our futures. We will continue to update our Life Maps as we proceed. It is a process, not a Goal. One day we will look back in wonder at how far we have come.

Our Life Map and the vision that results will sustain us through all of life’s challenges. We will be ready for them! We will thrive in spite of those challenges! “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33.

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Chapter 2 – The Life Mapping Process

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ife Mapping is a five-step process.

1) Determining our Beliefs.

2) Developing our Principles.

3) Deciding on our Goals.

4) Dividing the Goals into the necessary Activities.

5) Creating our To Do List of current Activities to be done.

Beliefs form the fabric we use to make our map. Without good, solid material our map will wear out before we reach our destination.

Principles are the rules or laws of the roads we will travel, on the way to reaching our destinations. Goals are our chosen destinations, places worthy of our efforts. Activities are the roads that we will travel to reach those destinations. Once we have chosen our destinations (Goals) we can decide which roads (Activities) will help us reach them. A To Do List is the itinerary we will use to make sure we know where we are supposed to be each day.

Goals help us decide which roads to take (which choices to make), when we reach forks in the roads (choices in life). We begin to make better and better decisions. We clearly see the progress in our journey. This leads to increased confidence and makes future decisions easier to make. As we develop our Life Map, we should occasionally check to make sure that we are not creating conflicts 17

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with our inner blueprint. These conflicts, if studied, uncover the true motives behind our Activities. Staying true to our inner blueprint keeps us from being led by wants created by others. Others will try to influence us through peer pressure and advertising, in an effort to put their wants above our own true needs. Henry David Thoreau thought that the problem with Americans was that they have turned themselves into “mere machines” to acquire wealth without asking why. Thoreau bore the uncomfortable truth that; material and moral progress are not as intimately related as Americans think. He expressed these thoughts in the 1840’s after spending considerable time away from civilization. What would he think of America in 2013? “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.” - Proverbs 16:8.

Finding our path.

Life Mapping doesn’t change us into robots, or someone else’s vision of who we should be. Rather, it motivates us into becoming the people we are capable of becoming. It may seem hard at first, but soon the Activities that we determine to be correct for us will become habits and it will be easier to stay on our new path than to go back to the old. “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”—Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

Thoreau wants us to understand that living the life we imagine might be different from the life other people have expected. We need 18

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to have the courage to take our time, to find our path, and success will follow. Life Mapping as defined by Henry David Thoreau!

Character counts.

Dr. Laura C. Schlessinger wrote, How Could You Do That?!, The Abdication of Character, Courage, and Conscience (HarperCollins). In her book, she stresses that today’s “victim” mentality has become an excuse for not accepting personal responsibility. The excuse goes something like this: “Considering my hurts, disappointments and traumas, I can’t be responsible for the havoc I wreak in the lives of others or the mess I’ve made of my own life.” Dr. Schlessinger asks if anyone really believes this rationalization. If this were true, only people with exceptional genes, great parents and an ideal environment can, and will, live lives of character, courage and conscience. Everyone else is doomed to some varying degree of failure. The victim mentality we have fostered steals the very hope from those who need it the most, hope that they can and will be able to respond to whatever crisis has befallen them.

Keith, 21, was addicted to drugs for eight years. “I took anything,” he admitted. “To have fun with my friends. It was a blast. I just liked it.” Now, he is free from the drugs. “I had some long-range goals, and they just weren’t panning out,” Keith told Dr. Schlessinger, “I tried changing jobs, friends, love relationships, and still wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I realized that I was the constant in the equation, and the constant was that I was using drugs.”

Keith wasn’t diseased. He wasn’t a victim. He just made bad choices. Victim mentality blurred the lines between right and wrong.

A vicious game of two wrongs make a right begins to escalate into chaos. Dr. Schlessinger sums it up with, “After listening to people’s stories for almost two decades, I have concluded that the path to 19

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healthy relationships and self-respect starts with the decision to do the right thing.” That is what Life Mapping is all about, giving us a system to help us decide what is the right thing to do and the process we need to be able to do it. “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” - Psalms 23:3, all we need to do is follow the path of righteousness.

Most people have waited their whole lives for someone to come along and save them. We will be saved only when we realize that the person we have waited for is none other than ourselves! If we have found it difficult to overcome our weaknesses, it is because the freedom we seek has not been preceded by the proper vision of that freedom. We can create our vision! We can create our Life Maps! “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”—George Eliot (Pen name of Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880).

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Chapter 3 – Beliefs

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an alone, of all the creatures of earth, can change his own pattern. Man alone is architect of his destiny. The great revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives.”—William James (1842-1910).

How do we change the inner attitudes of our minds? We change those attitudes by understanding that the inner attitudes of our minds are shaped by that which we truly believe. Without a clear idea of what we truly believe we are like animals, and our attitudes will be shaped by the environments we live in. We abdicate control of our attitudes and thereby our lives to anyone willing to take the time to influence us. Once this is understood, we can reshape our attitudes by clearly defining what we truly believe. The act of writing our Beliefs down is the first step in gaining control of our lives.

Beliefs drive every human behavior. What do we believe? If we have a well-defined Belief List, and act upon it, we should be happy with our behavior, most of the time. Without a well-defined Belief List, we will find ourselves living someone else’s life. The behavior associated with that life reflects the combined influences of the many people trying to run our lives for us, including those companies willing to spend billions of dollars to influence our behavior through 21

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advertising. Remember, in the final analysis, it is our behavior that defines us.

Our Beliefs form the fabric we use to make our Life Map. Without good, solid material our map will wear out before we reach our destinations. Our Belief List must include the understanding that we can become the person we see in our vision. It is our opportunity to experience our inner most being. We must be able to see ourselves fulfilling our purpose. What is our purpose? Purpose—the reason one exists. The reason one exists! This is a rather sobering thought.

Can we really have an individual purpose? We can, we do and we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. Counselors, psychologists, parents and priests are not able to tell us our purpose. We need to discover it. We will find it deep within us. Not everyone has the same purpose. We are the only ones who know our true inner-feelings, those feelings that bring us joy. Notice I said joy not pleasure. Pleasure can be a momentary thing, while joy is lasting. We feel this joy when we align our Activities with our purpose or blueprint. We might think that some of the things that bring us joy are trivial, but nothing is trivial if it brings us and/or others joy. Something as simple as telling stories to children might be our purpose. That might be the very reason we are here. We could be the very storytellers who awaken a child’s dreams.

There are two parts to the purpose question. One is finding our purpose and the second one is finding the purpose of humanity in general. This world is very complex and interdependent. Given enough time and resources we can eventually discover the purpose of every plant and animal in this world. As noble an activity as this might seem, it would be slightly less important than discovering our own purpose. How would knowing our purpose change the way we lived? Most people would live radically different lives if they knew 22

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why they were here. Unfortunately, they receive no training and have very little time to explore the concept. It might even seem like an impossible task. But, it is less complicated than we might imagine.

It all begins with our idea of how we got here and the study of our individual gifts.

Finding our passion.

Gifts are those things we do better than most other people. Like the way Michael Jordan played basketball, Tiger Woods plays golf or Bill Gates ran Microsoft. We might think that we are without these special gifts. We need to think again, everyone has them. We can ask our friends, our spouse or siblings. We just need to think about the things we enjoy doing. We might have to extract the common elements from several different Activities before the picture becomes clear enough for us to see. When we find our gifts they will lead us to our purpose.

Looking for our gifts Children bring a wonderful sense of adventure and awe to the world. Time and adults slowly drain these gifts from all but the few lucky enough to escape childhood with them still intact. Adam Werbach wrote an article for the Sierra Club Bulletin, “Three Little Words.” He tells of a group of researchers that asked a preschool class, “Who knows how to sing?” Every child eagerly responded that they could. “Who knows how to dance?” Same response. “Who knows how to draw?” Yes, every child responded positively. The following week the researchers were asking the same questions of the students of an elite university. “Who knows how to sing?” A few responded that they could sing. “Dance?” Two reluctantly responded yes. “Draw?” Not one hand.

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It seems that somewhere between preschool and college we lose these abilities. How did we lose them? Are we letting society slowly drain them from us with each negative response to our own individual expression of who we believe we are? Are our children losing their abilities, or are they losing their confidence in their abilities? These abilities are but a small sampling of the gifts that are taken from us as we “grow-up,” whatever that means. A child’s world is full of wonder and excitement. If we can but nurture that feeling, it could serve as an antidote for the ills of boredom and disenchantment waiting along life’s path. We must each work to reacquire these gifts and to make sure that our children never lose them. It is a gentle world these gifts allow us to see. And this world is one of hope and optimism. All problems can be overcome. This is the truth to which we are born. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28. We can’t let the harsh realities of this world spoil our chances of finding a better one.

We need only look for our gifts to lead us to our purpose. I was born a teacher. It took me 50 years to figure it out. My early training taught me that we live in a money-centered world. The study of who makes the most and why was the task at hand. So, when it came time for me to find a career, long-term financial success was the most important element. How could I make the most money?

I decided some form of sales would provide the best financial potential. I worked as a stockbroker for three years, from 1972 to 1975. Unfortunately, my timing was bad. I watched the market fall from 1050 to 560 the last twenty-four months of my career. I looked for another career that provided a more stable income and found the insurance business. Now, looking back I can clearly see that I enjoyed teaching people new things, whether it was how to better 24

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manage their investments or properly insuring against the risks they were uncomfortable taking. Outside of work, I was always teaching someone how to bowl, play bridge or write a difficult computer program. Seeing people understand a new concept or solve a difficult problem has always provided me with a sense of pure joy! I guess that is why joy is the center of enjoyed. We need to determine what brings us joy?

It is a matter of perspective.

“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are.”—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (HarperCollins, London). This Lewis quote reminds me of a story. A man was sitting on a fence at the edge of a small western town in the late 1800’s. A family in a wagon stopped to ask the man what kind of people lived in the town. The man asked about the kind of people the family experienced in their last town. The family replied that they left because most of the people were mean and cruel. The man responded by informing them that they would find the same kind of people in this town. A few hours later another family came along asking the same question. This time the family informed the man that the people in their last town were mostly kind and gentle. The man told them that they would find the same kind of people in this town. Now, it might seem at first glance that the man was just appeasing these people. A deeper look will reveal that the man was demonstrating one of the most solid principles of human interaction.

We as humans will find what we are looking for. If we look for the good in people, the God in people, we will find it, and if we look for the bad in people, we will find it. “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” - Jeremiah 29:13.

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The same people, but seen from a different point of view. This is the very point that Lewis makes. If we are to change the world we live in and the way people respond to us, we need to change the way we look at situations, our attitudes. Life Mapping is a tool that will help us and the first step, the one that decides where we are standing, is developing our Belief List. Everything else is built on this foundation.

“What we are was designed and built by our own thoughts in our minds. If we nurture ignorant or evil thoughts, pain will soon follow. If our thoughts are healthy and beneficial, joy will follow us as surely as our shadows follow us on a sunny day. Most of us are anxious to improve our circumstances, but are unwilling to improve ourselves—and we therefore remain bound. If we do not shrink from an honest self-examination, we can never fail to accomplish the object upon which our hearts are set. Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life; and righteousness, not corruption, is the molding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world.

This being so, we have to but right ourselves to find that the universe is right; and during the process of putting ourselves right, we will find that as we alter our thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards us.”—James Allen, As a Man Thinketh. We must guard our thoughts, keep them as pure as we can and they will serve us well. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” - Jeremiah 29:11, God gives us the example of properly guarding our thoughts.

How did it all begin?

The development of our Belief List starts with that most basic of all questions: how did it all begin? What do we believe? Could it 26

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be the result of chaos leading to evolution, the work of God, or some combination of the two, or some other totally different idea? In 1994, a Gallup Poll found that 96% of Americans believe in God. Of course, they have different descriptions and names for God. Some think that God is somehow responsible for evolution. Current scientific evidence has confused the average person. This confusion has led people to abandon the question, in favor of faith or disbelief.

The issue here is for us to resolve the question to our satisfaction.

We can listen to the arguments on both sides, but in the final analysis, we must decide, if we are going to uncover our individual Life Map. A belief.

A definition of a belief: “The mental acceptance of and conviction in something believed to be true.� If we have the conviction and accept something as true, it should be included in our list. Every time we add a new Belief, we need to ask why we believe it. Our answer will lead us to deeper, more basic, Beliefs. The idea in making a Belief List is to create a list that summarizes our major Beliefs. There is no correct number of Beliefs. However, if a stranger read our list they would have a good sense of our idea of how it all began, the purpose of humanity in general and our individual purpose. There is a list of resource books, in the appendix, that might help with this activity.

Most importantly, we need to listen to that little voice in our head. It is our inner blueprint speaking to us.

Here is a sample of a quality Belief List, from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960): * I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. * I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

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* I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master. * I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living, but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living. * I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business, or personal affairs. * I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order. * I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character---not wealth or power or position---is of supreme worth. * I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will. * I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

Please note that Rockefeller stated his beliefs in a very positive manner. There is no room for doubt in a Belief. It is helpful to begin each belief with the words, I believe. Until we understand our origin, our purpose, and develop a clear Belief List, we will be at the mercy of those that would influence us for their own benefit.

I believe that God not only created everything, He gave us an instruction manual to use. The Bible is God’s gift to us. So, when I decided to create my Life Map, I used the Word of God to help me create it. If we believe in God, we can start with the beginning Belief List that follows. Then, we can delete, add, or change, all or part of the list, as we believe God has instructed us.

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The Bible tells us that God’s plan is to create an eternal family.

We can all be part of this eternal family, if we choose to be. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” - Revelations 21:7. When we put to use the gifts God has given us, we are not only doing our part in the creation of the family, but we are also benefiting from the harmony that follows in our lives.

We eliminate the conflicts created by not living in harmony with God’s plan for our lives.

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A Beginning Belief List.

Beliefs I believe: 1. There is a God. a. This Belief supported by the Bible: i. Gen 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” ii. Ex 3:14 – “And God said unto Moses, ‘I Am That I Am’: and he said, ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’” iii. Heb 11:6 – “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” iv. Rev 1:8 – “’I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,’ saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” b. This Belief supported by the real world: i. There is order in nature. There would be only chaos without a creator. ii. The world empires have followed Biblical prophecies.

Without a God, one of the evil world leaders would have already conquered the whole world, for they are willing to do anything to get their way. iii. Thinking about how people act and react in this world will lead us to seeing the truth of the Bible. For the Bible tells us why we all act and react the way we do. This shows us that there is a God, for He created the Bible as a way for us to understand this world, both the good and the evil.

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2. God is pure love. a. In the Bible: i. 1 Jn 4:8 – “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” ii. Jn 15:13 – “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” iii. Rom 5:8 – “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” b. In the real world: i. When beings sacrifice, sometimes their lives, for others, it reflects God’s love. ii. When beings show their affection for others, without an ulterior motive, it demonstrates God’s love. iii. The beauty we see in this decaying evil world speaks of God’s love.

3. God wants an eternal family. a. In the Bible: i. Lk 20:36 – “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” ii. Eph 1:4-5 – “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,” iii. Jn 11:35 – “Jesus wept.” iv. 2 Tim 1:9 – “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” 31

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v. Rev 21:7 – “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” b. In the real world: i. The feelings we have for our children and grandchildren, reflect those of our Father. ii. We receive joy by being around our children and grandchildren when they are happy. We have no ulterior motive, we are just enjoying their happiness. iii. We feel pain when we lose someone we love, as God does when one of us rejects His gift.

4. God created everything needed for the development of His family. a. In the Bible: i. Gen 2:7 – “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” ii. Jer 1:5 – “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” iii. Jn 6:39-40 – “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” iv. Col 1:13-17 – “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, 32

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visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:” b. In the real world: i. When we think about how perfectly everything in our world fits together and what would happen if there were just small differences; our air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, etc. Change any of these and life as we know it would not exist. ii. Think about the distance the earth is from the sun, any closer and we would fry, any farther away and we would freeze. iii. Think about how our minds allow us to fulfill God’s plan for us to subdue this planet and, if we are willing to believe, to fight off the devil and the sins he is always tempting us with.

5. We all have a part to play in the development of God’s eternal family, if we choose to be part of it. a. In the Bible: i. Jer 29:11 – “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” ii. Rom 8:28 – “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” iii. 1 Cor 12:12-13 – “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”

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iv. Eph 4:16 – “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” b. In the real world: i. With all of the natural disasters that have occurred in our world, humans are still on the path to fulfilling God’s plan for the development of His family, as told in the Bible. ii. We all have different gifts, allowing each of us to fulfill our part in His plan. He made just enough people with these skills to end up with the correct number, that have chosen to be part of the eternal family, to complete all aspects of His plan. iii. We have all the resources we need to complete His plan and those who are willing to do anything to stop His plan from succeeding have not been able to limit the use of those resources, no matter how hard thy have tried, like trying to keep the Bible from getting into the hands of the common people.

6. God gave us the Bible to help us understand His plan. a. In the Bible: i. Ps 119:9 – “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.” ii. Prov 1:2,7 – “To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding…the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” iii. Matt 4:4 – “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” iv. Eph 6:13-17 – “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour 34

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of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:” b. In the real world: i. All history verifies the prophecies of the Bible. ii. Nature and the Bible both point perfectly to God and His plan. His plan includes the beauty we see, the families we enjoy and the love we experience with all He created. Both nature and the Bible tell the same story, unless we are intentionally misrepresenting one of them. iii. The way the Bible tells us to treat nature produces the best results, when to plant and harvest, what to eat, when to sleep, how to avoid addictions and they all lead to the healthiest and happiest lives.

7. God wants everyone treated fairly, not necessarily the same. Treating people the same is not fair to those that deserve more, as the lazy should not earn the same wages as the industrious. a. In the Bible: i. Ruth 2:15-16 – “And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.” ii. Lk 10:36-37 – “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And 35

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he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” iii. Jn 5:28-29 – “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” iv. Rom 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” b. In the real world: i. We each have different gifts, beauty, quick minds or bodies.

Because of these different gifts, we will all be treated differently. Not all choose to believe, but those that do can use whatever gifts God has given them, to bring themselves, and all of humanity, the happiness desired. ii. When we see cruelty for cruelty’s sake we are offended.

However, when a killer is locked in a cell we understand why.

We see events like these played out in nature everyday, as the devil leads people to do unthinkable things. iii. We do not treat the bird and the fish the same, nor the salesman and the teacher, but each should be treated fairly.

Each deserves the benefits and happiness earned. Respect, not jealousy, should rule, and when it doesn’t, we sense it.

8. Only one-third of all humanity will choose to be part of the eternal family.. a. In the Bible: i. Zech 13:8 – “And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.” ii. Matt 7:13 – “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the 36

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gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:” iii. Lk 20:36 – “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” iv. Rev 12:4 – “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” v. Jn 5:40 – “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” b. In the real world: i. Too many people, easily more than half of humanity, do not follow the principles of the Bible and do not love God. ii. There are groups of Christians, spread over all ethnic groups, that live the principles in the Bible and those communities are a pleasure to interact with. Unfortunately, these groups are in the minority. iii. Those that have chosen to not be a part of the eternal family have become more and more visible and vocal. They have reached a majority, so God and His commandments are slowly being removed from our public places.

9. Rules and laws help us find and stay on the path to God. This is why He gave us the Ten Commandments. a. In the Bible: i. Deut 29:29 – “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” ii. Prov 3:1-6 – “My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart 37

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keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” iii. Rom 8:6-8 – “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” iv. Rev 22:14 – “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” b. In the real world: i. Everyday people are being sentenced to prison for breaking laws, many of which are included in the Ten Commandments. ii. When someone violates one of the Ten Commandments, and it negatively affects us, we are very unhappy. iii. People that follow all of the Ten Commandments are easy to be around and the best possible friends.

10. Jesus will return to collect His eternal family. a. In the Bible: i. Dan 7:13-14 – “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, 38

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should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” ii. Matt 24:30 – “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” iii. Jn 14:2-3 – “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” iv. Rev 1:7 – “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” b. In the real world: i. The hope provided by the thought of the Second Coming of Christ, allows us to live within His purpose for our lives.

Without this hope, we would not be able to withstand the tribulations and temptations of this evil world. ii. The events illustrated in the Bible regarding end times have almost all been fulfilled, so the end is relatively near. iii. The positive works and sacrifices of people that believe in His return, testifies to the good produced by the belief itself.

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Chapter 4 – Principles

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ive so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.”—H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book (Rutledge Hill Press).

Fairness and integrity are examples of two wonderful Principles.

As we travel the road of life we will need to know which rules to follow. Principles are our rules for life, the ones we have chosen.

How do we know which Principles we should choose? Remember, the goal of this process is to remove conflict. There are certain natural laws; gravity is an example of one that remains constant. It would be foolish to live our lives ignoring it. It would create conflicts that could cause us great physical harm. Our Principle List should include all of the rules, we feel, we need to follow to live our lives in alignment with our Belief List.

Is there a perfect list of Principles? Yes, but we are to develop our own list and continually improve it, while keeping perfection as our goal. Experience will teach us which Principles to add, delete or modify. Why can’t we just take someone else’s list? We can and we will, as our starting point in developing our own list. However, we will still need to revise it based on our own experience. When our inner blueprint, our written lists and our actions are in alignment, we will have achieved our goal. We can always test one of our Principles by asking ourselves if society would be able to prosper with the 40

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opposite Principle. For example, if honesty were one of our Principles, would society be able to prosper with dishonesty as one of its core Principles? If the answer is no, then our Principle is a sound one.

Why do we need to have rules? “Most successful football players not only accept rules and limitations but, I believe, they need them.

Players are free to perform at their best only when they know what the expectations are, where the limits stand. I see this as a Biblical principle that also applies to life, a principle our society as a whole has forgotten: you can’t enjoy true freedom without limits.”—Tom Landry: An Autobiography, with Gregg Lewis (HarperCollins). Tom Landry’s observation is correct. Our children clearly demonstrate this need.

They continually test the limits of their environment until they know them and can feel the safety and comfort of those limits. If we are consistent in defining these limits they learn them and feel safe! If we keep giving them different answers to their questions about limits, we confuse them and create conflicts in their lives. Sometimes these childhood conflicts lead us down the wrong roads in life. As parents, we need to be consistent. Our children’s futures might depend on it.

If people were free to shoot anyone at will, then no one would feel safe on the streets. No one would be truly free. Knowing our limits allows us to live our lives to those limits, a much fuller and complete life then one in which we were always looking over our shoulder in fear. We wouldn’t have to wonder whether we had done something wrong. This is why children keep testing, they don’t want to do anything wrong. They just need to know what is really wrong.

So, Principles serve a valid purpose. “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;” - Hebrews 10:16, so we can know which Principles to follow, if we will only think and examine our hearts.

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Ben Franklin made the listing and mastering of Principles his life long project. He called them virtues. Franklin understood that reaching perfection was an arduous task but ignoring the labor leads to habits (lured by inclination, custom or the company of others) that are self-destructive.

Here is a sample of a quality Principle List, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): 1. Temperance: I will eat not to dullness. I will drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: I will speak not but what may benefit others or myself.

I will avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: I will let all my things have their places. I will let each part of my business have its time.

4. Resolution: I will resolve to perform what I ought. I will perform without fail what I resolve.

5. Frugality: I will make no expense but to do good to others or myself; i.e., waste nothing.

6. Industry: I will lose no time. I will be always employed in something useful. I will cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: I will use no hurtful deceit. I will think innocently and justly; and, if I speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: I will wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are my duty.

9. Moderation: I will avoid extremes. I will forbear resenting injuries so much as I think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: I will tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Tranquility: I will be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. Chastity: I will rarely use venery but for health or 42

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offspring—never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of my own or another’s peace or reputation.

13. Humility: I will imitate Jesus and Socrates.

It is important to understand that becoming the best we are capable of becoming is the goal, not perfection. I believe that humans are capable of perfection. Unfortunately the difficulty in achieving it causes people to shun the idea, withdraw from even trying, and eventually, to develop defense mechanisms that ultimately become self-destructive.

So, though becoming the best we are capable of is the goal, we must continue to strive beyond that goal to perfection. This is the same concept that allows martial arts experts to break the board they are hitting by focusing on a point past the board. It is perfection that leads us to our goal and sometimes beyond it! Our Principles List creates the signposts that we will use to help us make decisions when we come to the forks in the road. The Principles we select will guide the way we think, act and react to everything in our lives.

A lot of people ask me what is the difference between a Belief and a Principle. Beliefs are “Why” and Principles are “How” we do things. Principles are the rules we follow while taking some kind of action. Beliefs are the reasons we follow our Principles. If one of my Beliefs is “God wants us all to be treated fairly,” I could select the Principle, “I will not steal.” This Principle would be supported by my Belief, since stealing from someone would not be treating them fairly. Without the Belief to support the rule, I would steal whenever it was to my benefit. Before we say, “I wouldn’t steal”, we must ask ourselves, “have I ever stretched the truth on my tax returns?”

On our list we may have selected reliability as one of our Principles. If so, when we start thinking about doing something, we will make sure it does not conflict with something else we have 43

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already committed to do. When we commit to doing something, people can count on us to not only be there but to be on time. When someone points out to us that we are late, we no longer get mad at them for their impudent remark but rather thank them and apologize for our tardiness. We would then resolve to make the adjustments necessary to prevent repeating our tardiness.

Think about us walking on the path of life. Our Principles List is like a shield that protects us from people and events that would come along and push us off the path. The temptations that would have otherwise diverted us from our course are too weak to penetrate the shield. The farther along the path we travel, the stronger our shield becomes. One day, our inner blueprint and our daily behavior will be in complete alignment. That will be the day we stop working on our Life Map because we are living it. That day we will have become the person we have always wanted to be.

No longer will others be able to influence us. No longer will our needs and wants battle for our attention. No longer will we worry about pleasing someone else or fearing that we have broken some rule or law. We are now living up to our own inner blueprint and that is a higher standard than any we will face here on Earth. We will be at peace with the rest of creation.

Responsibility.

We can’t delegate our responsibility for keeping our actions in alignment with our Principles. We are responsible for our actions.

It is possible for others to help us in our efforts to improve. Sharing our Principles List with caring friends and relatives puts them in a position of giving us feedback. When they inform us that our actions are in conflict with our ideal behavior, we then have the opportunity to make the necessary corrections. Ultimately, we will decide our 44

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actions and thus define the person we are, however, the help we will receive from caring friends and family will speed the process.

Principles can and should become habits. When a Principle is so ingrained into our nature that we would not knowingly or willingly violate it, it has become a habit. Habits are formed by repetitive action.

We need to improve our thought process, which ultimately leads to our behavior.

We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions.

We sow our actions, and we reap our habits.

We sow our habits, and we reap our character.

We sow our character, and we reap our destiny.

- Anonymous, The Five Rituals of Wealth Thoughts to Behavior.

Noticing when we successfully conform to our Principle List is very important. It will lead to the repetitive successes that become the habits that will define us. Benjamin Franklin rotated the 13 principles on his list every month. He also shared his list with a friend who helped him add to it. Only Franklin can describe the addition, “My list of virtues contained at first but twelve. But a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud, that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation, that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was over-bearing and rather insolent—of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances—I determined endeavoring to cure 45

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myself if I could of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.� Each month he recorded his actions involving that month’s principle. He continued the process for over 50 years. He lived his principles!

Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) wrote a poem expressing his philosophy, his version of a Principle List and here are a few lines from it: My Creed To play my little part, nor whine That greater honors are not mine.

This, I believe, is all I need For my philosophy and creed.

The rules Edgar A. Guest established for his life were simple, honest and unassuming. They would be the cause for sound sleep and a peace in passing from this Earth. It is a good example of someone that developed rules for his life that expressed his inner blueprint. I suggest you read the whole poem to get the full effect!

Ethics.

Some people are becoming more and more concerned with morals and ethics. It is a natural response to the breakdown in our society.

Ken Cooper, Ph.D., wrote an article in the Journal of the American Society of CLU & ChFC entitled, Rediscovering Ethics: Back to Basics. Michael Joseph Josephson founded the Josephson Institute in an effort to improve the ethical landscape of our American society.

Now that we are in the twenty-first century, the need to deal with 46

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these questions is intensifying. Many are recognizing that the basic Principles our society lives by are in desperate need of correction.

Each of us must take responsibility for our own conduct. “The only way you can truly control how you are seen is by being honest all the time.”—Tom Hanks.

Honesty includes being honest with ourselves. “The lies we tell ourselves are more pernicious than the lies we tell others; ‘I’m nothing like my mother’…‘I’m too busy to exercise’…‘I don’t need therapy’…‘I don’t want to get married.’” - Michael Levine, Lessons at the Halfway Point.

These simple statements speak volumes. We can’t live by someone else’s rules, we must develop our own Principle List and live by it.

Every time one person does this, there is one less person supporting the problem. Yes, supporting the problem. Destructive behavior is more acceptable if large numbers of people are involved. The smaller the percentage of the population demonstrating bad behavior the more conspicuous they become. So, we are either part of the solution or we are part of the problem. Be part of the solution!

“All religions teach us to help people whenever we can. All religions teach us to play fair and not to hit or kill or steal or cheat.

All religions teach us that we should be forgiving; and cut people some slack when they mess up, because someday we will mess up too. All religions teach us to love our families, to respect our parents and to make new families when we grow up. Religions all over the world teach the same right way to live.”—Rabbi Marc Gellman and Msgr. Thomas Hartman, How Do You Spell God? (Morrow).

Every religion teaches Principles that could be added to our lists.

We shouldn’t overlook any source, but we need to remember to filter these Principles through our own inner blueprint before we add them to our list.

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A definition of a Principle: “A rule or a standard, especially of good behavior.” If we believe that a Principle should be followed and it is supported by our Beliefs, it should be added it to our Principle List. For the sake of clarity, we will identify the Belief that best supports each of the Principles on our list. We can consider our list complete when we can point to one of our Principles as the guiding force in every major decision we are making and can conceive of making in the future. See the suggested reading list in the Appendix to help with this activity.

It is helpful to begin each Principle with the words, I am/do.

Work to limit the number of Principles stated negatively. Consider what we will do rather than what we will not do. Positive statements are more powerful motivators. Rather than depriving ourselves, we will be taking charge of our lives. There will be times we will feel compelled to use the “not” word, the use of drugs might be one of those times. Just keep them to a minimum.

“The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.” -- Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

Having a written list helps us to remember what to do. How many Principles should we have? We need as many Principles as it takes to help us deal with every major decision in our lives. Remember, each Principle, on our list should be supported by one of our Beliefs.

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A Beginning Principle List.

Principles 1. I will continue to work to develop the following virtues into habits (The Belief that supports each virtue) and a supporting verse: a. I am honest (9) Eph 4:15 “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” b. I am loving (2) Matt 22:37-40 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” c. I am reliable (5) Acts 24:16 “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void to offence toward God, and toward men.” d. I am loyal (5) Matt 25:21 “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” e. I am humble (1) Matt 20:28 “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” f. I am patient (4) Rev 3:10 “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” g. I am helpful (5) Prov 27:17 “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” h. I am cooperative (4) Rom 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love.” i. I am trustworthy (2) Ps 34:8 “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”

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j. I am respectful (2) Phil 2:3 “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” k. I am tranquil (2) 1 Jn 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” l. I am confident (1) Phil 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” m. I am supportive (5) Heb 10:24-25 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” n. I am industrious (5) Prov 22:29 “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” o. I am frugal (5) Is 55:2 “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” p. I am alert (9) Matt 24:23-25 “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.” q. I am fit (4) 1 Cor 6:19 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” r. I am studious (6) Jn 3:33 “He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.”

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s. I am generous (7) Lk 6:38 “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” t. I do respect order (4) Rom 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” u. I do facilitate harmony within my family (3) Matt 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

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Chapter 5 – Goals

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oals are the destinations we have chosen to work towards.

They are the dreams we create that we believe are worthy of our attention and effort. The Belief and Principle Lists we created in the last two chapters are the foundation upon which we will build our Goals. We should not have a Goal that creates conflict with anything on either our Belief or Principle Lists. Some people say they don’t have any Goals. What they mean is that they can’t see a way of achieving their dreams. Turning a dream into a Goal requires planning and a willingness to follow through on those plans. Anyone can, not everyone will.

Some people don’t think they need to write down their Goals because they already know what they want and they are surely doing all that they can to make it happen. Some of these same people will tell us that their families are more important than money.

Unfortunately, their actions may not support this statement. They work long hours and sacrifice many family Activities to earn money.

They justify it by pointing to the material things they are providing their families. They treat the people at work with respect then come home and are impatient and irritable with the ones they love. All the while their family is growing farther and farther apart. Years later, they wonder why their families didn’t adequately appreciate all that they had done. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be 52

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also.” - Matthew 6:21, we cannot hide our priorities from those that love us, they feel the loss.

People who focus on the past or their current problems create more of the same. People who focus on their future begin to create that future. The underlying theme behind Goal setting is gaining control of our lives. Determining what we truly want, rather than letting others limit us with their expectations. We can exceed any of their expectations. Think for the moment that failure is impossible, what would we want? What are our special gifts?

What are our limitations.

When people think about Goals, they usually come face to face with their perceived limitations. Instead of thinking about our limitations, the potential problems or the negative results that might occur, think about the rewards of reaching each new Goal. The gains waiting for those willing to reach their potential far outweigh the risks involved.

We can’t let the problems keep us from seeing the possibilities.

One woman saw the possibilities and worked to make her dreams into her reality. That woman was the first woman to run for the Presidency of the United States. Belva Ann Lockwood ran twice, in 1884 and 1888. She decided to do this even though women didn’t have the right to vote. How is that for a Goal! She didn’t stop at that. She earned a law degree and became one of the first women to practice law. It didn’t end there. She forced an act of Congress to enable her to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. We need to ask ourselves what Goals would inspire us, put a fire in our souls? We can’t be afraid to acknowledge them! We need only think about Belva Ann Lockwood, and start living our dreams! Doing nothing provides its own share of risk.

How close have we come to achieving our potential? What Goals 53

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will test our perceived limits and bring our achievements closer to our potential? Don’t be afraid of exploring new horizons. We can overcome the temptation to maintain the status quo, seek the adventure and happiness that awaits us along the path. While writing our goals down will not guarantee success, if followed by the action steps that will be developed in the next Chapter, it will put the odds overwhelmingly in our favor. Remember what the Dominican University of California study had to say about Goals. We will be in rare company.

“Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”—Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919).

Of course, before we can dare mighty things, we have to decide what mighty things we will dare. The noise and confusion we live in may make this a difficult task. The glorious triumphs will be worth the sacrifice. So, now is the time to find a quite place, away from all distractions. We all think we are too busy to take a break.

It is a common feeling. The reality is that we are too busy not to take a break. Some of those things that are keeping us busy are not necessary. Only by taking the time to determine our real priorities will we be able to eliminate the unnecessary ones. We might find that we are creating some of the noise in an effort to prevent ourselves from feeling the pain associated with discovering how much we disliked those unnecessary activities. Whatever time it takes, the results will be worth it, in the long run.

Goals need to be balanced The act of deciding on our Goals is a very important step. Our lives actually become the Goals we are actively pursuing. “Until 54

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thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.

With most people, the bark of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life. We need to conceive of a legitimate purpose in our heart, and set out to accomplish it.”—James Allen, As a Man Thinketh.

Proper Goal setting is a process in which our thoughts and our real purpose meld to form a list of Goals. Others may witness our growth, but we alone will live it. The life we have chosen begins when we link our thoughts with our purpose. One obstacle in achieving the life we want is balance. Visualize a chair with four legs. If one of the legs is removed, what happens to the person sitting in the chair? This very same concept applies to our lives. When one area of our lives is neglected, we begin to sense the uneasy feeling of falling. Someone so devoted to their work that they neglect their family, will one day regret the imbalance that causes them to lose their family. To achieve a balanced life, we need to have goals in the four basic areas of life: * Spiritual, that part of us that understands the real meaning of our lives and helps us connect with the rest of creation and beyond; * Physical, the care we give to the vessel we will use for our journey on earth; * Familial, the way we relate to and interact with our family and friends; * Societal, all of our interaction with the rest of creation, including our careers.

Forsaking the Physical for any of the other areas would lead us to ill health or death. We certainly can’t be at our best in the other areas if this happens. Balance is the key to reaching our true potential as a “whole” being, becoming fully human. The dictionary tells us that whole means containing all parts, not disjointed. Reaching our full potential requires all four of our parts.

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The four areas are listed in the order of priority. At the center of our lives is our Spiritual development. If our spirit is weak we will be unknowingly led to a life of destruction and misery, and unable to work on any of our other areas.

Moving outward, if we are physically weaker than we could be, we will be less able to work on the other areas. These first two areas make it possible to work on the last two. However, no spiritual, physical, career or community successes will compensate us for the loss of our families. To be whole, we need to keep our lives complete, and in balance.

“My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one…and work is play for mortal stakes is the deed ever really done for heaven and the future’s sake.”—Robert Frost (1874-1963).

To accomplish this worthy Goal we need to start asking ourselves simple questions for each of the four basic areas of our life: Spiritual, Physical, Familial and Societial. “What is my ideal vision of the person I want to become? How do I want to be remembered?”

Spiritual - Our vision might include any or many of the following: developing our relationship with God, living in harmony with nature, learning to understand ourselves, understanding nature, understanding our subconscious, discovering cycles and how we fit into them, or clarifying our concept of how it all began. This is not a complete list; it is intended to spark our imagination.

Physical – Our vision might include: discovering the ideal exercise, diet or weight, or developing lifestyle habits that promote longevity; getting adequate sleep, eating breakfast daily, avoiding tobacco, or moderating alcohol. What should we add to this list?

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Familial – Our vision might include: the kind of spouse, parent, sibling, or child we could become. How would we act in each of these relationships? What kinds of things would we enjoy doing in these roles? How would we feel as a result of these changes? Are we living within our budget or do we need to work on it?

Societal - We will spent more time in our vocation than in any other activity, except sleeping. We need to make sure we don’t choose the wrong career for the wrong reason. Too many people get up each day and drag themselves to a job to make a living. We must ask ourselves, “If I lived in a world without money what would I be doing?” Don’t settle for an unfulfilling career in exchange for financial rewards.

We will be sentencing ourselves to years of frustration. By carefully assessing our gifts, interests and Principles List, we will be able to identify career opportunities that will bring us the most satisfaction.

We can make this choice our passion. Listen to Frost…“where your love and need are one.” Finding our passion, something we would love doing, is the first step in deciding on a career. Don’t settle for someone else’s passion or idea of our limitations.

There is a little story, The Animal School, by Dr. R.H. Reeves, about a school attended by different kinds of animals. The school decided to test the animals in a number of different areas. One particular duck, an excellent swimmer and flyer, turned out to be a very poor runner, so, in their infinite wisdom, the school officials decided that the duck could no longer swim or fly until he improved his running.

Soon, he became an average runner, but, for some unexplained reason he became only an average swimmer and flier. We can’t let anyone influence us into giving up the things at which we excel! “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.” - Psalms 32:9.

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Do we need additional education? If the answer is yes, then make that a goal! We must always allow our creativity to work for us. There is life after vocation, even a fulfilling one.

We must remember to include our friends, “When you stop spending time with real friends, you lose your balance.”—Michael Levine, Lessons at the Halfway Point. The rest of our vision might include: travel, our involvement with politics, civic organizations, charities, etc.

Back to our dreams.

A friend of mine, Hal Urban, a teacher and the author of 20 Things I Want My Kids to Know (Thomas Nelson Publishers), has his psychology class make a list of 100 things they would like to do before they die. It is a very interesting exercise. It can tell us a lot about our priorities. We should take the time to try this exercise ourselves. When we complete the list, we should identify our top 10 and work them into our future goals list.

What dreams have we had about our lives? We should make sure that our dreams are on the lists we are creating. Take those dreams we are transforming into Goals and write a paragraph, answering the following questions, for each Goal. This paragraph should include our reasons for choosing every Goal and why the Goal is important to us. We should see ourselves already achieving the Goal. How does it make us feel? Write it down! The vision this creates becomes so vivid that it brings our Goal to life. It gives us the needed incentive when the going gets rough and we contemplate giving up. We also need to consider the cost we are willing to pay to reach the Goal. Do the research necessary to fully determine what will be required of us to accomplish this Goal, and include this information in paragraph. This will allow us to face the cost and 58

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change our minds before we have wasted too much time or money in the pursuit of that Goal.

Read these paragraphs as often as possible, and certainly whenever we are frustrated or thinking of giving up on the Goal.

This Activity will bring back the feelings and thought process that we used in creating the Goal. This will help us decide whether we need to modify the Goal. This is just the beginning of building the vision of the person we want to become. This is how we will proactively manage our lives…now and into the future. We will modify this vision many times over the years. Experience will make us wiser and our vision will come ever nearer to alignment with our inner blueprint. The nearer we come, the clearer we will see the overall picture.

As our view of the overall picture becomes clearer, we will find ourselves at peace with our world. The better we feel, the more creative we will become. We need to make sure we allow our creative side to mature. Give it all the resources necessary to develop. Pure joy will follow and so will the day we truly begin to live our purpose.

Commit it to writing.

Everyone has heard the old saying, “every journey begins with the first step.” It is one thing to understand a concept…it is quite another to take action. It is much easier to strike out on a new trail when we have a guide to lead the way. Developing our Goals begins when we commit them to writing. This is the next step in completing our Life Map, our guide to our future! So, get out a piece of paper and start writing them down. Goals need to be specific; our mind cannot deal with generalities. We want a blue 2014 Ford Mustang convertible. We need to have a timeline associated with each Goal; this is one of the steps in turning a wish into a Goal. We want that 59

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Mustang by June 1, 2014. We also need a plan to accomplish this goal and we will develop one in the next chapter.

Be ready for surprises.

Sometimes our Goals surprise us. We labor to produce one fruit and end up enjoying a very unexpected and quite different one. I read a story in Family Circle about a woman that planted a rose garden. One year she discovered that something very large was eating her roses. She got up early one morning to find a magnificent deer, just ten feet from her window, dining on her Queen Elizabeth rosebush. Now, each year she is faced with the decision of fencing her yard and having a rose garden or spending time watching this magical creature. Her goal was a rose garden. Her surprise was the silence and peacefulness of watching the deer. We should look for the mysteries in life and not be so focused on the Goal that we miss the surprise!

It is time for action, now we can begin writing down our initial Goals List.

Time to prioritize.

Now that we have some Goals identified in each area, we need to prioritize them. The single most common error in developing a Goals List is over-scheduling. People get caught up in trying to do it all. The result is a schedule that is so full we are stressed most of the time and much less efficient. It is better to start with a few Goals and move on to the next Goal on the priority list, when we complete one, or find that we have enough extra time in the schedule to add another activity. It is advisable to begin with only one or two Goals in each area. Remember, for dreams and wishes to graduate to Goals they must have completion dates. Yes, that ugly word, deadlines.

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Deadlines provide the information needed to develop a timeline.

This makes our progress measurable and allows us to make the adjustments necessary for the accomplishment of the Goal.

What is enough? When we begin to establish Goals in different areas of our lives, we should think about limits that truly express our idea of what is enough. How much land is enough? How big a house is enough? Do we need to own a vacation home or is renting enough?

What will bring us the peace and joy that God has promised? “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” - John 14:27, His peace.

During my 38 years in the insurance business, I have learned many things from my policyholders. Life in our modern society has developed into a fairly routine cycle. When we are young, under 30, we think we are going to live forever. We spend all that we earn and then some, and we think we will have more than enough time to plan for retirement, later. Between 30 and 50 we begin the accumulation stage. We buy houses, fancy cars, art, fine furniture and designer clothes. Then, between 50 and 65 the children are grown and move out of the house, and we start wondering what we are going to do with all this stuff. And so, sometime in our 60’s or 70’s we begin to give it away. If we could start these cycles with a better understanding of what is really important to us, we would come to the later stages better prepared. Our preparation would allow us to understand that what we have is not as important as whom we have become. The decisions we would make along life’s journey would be more in alignment with our blueprint, the one that God has given us.

As we move along our life path remember the warning of H. Jackson Browne, “Don’t let your possessions possess you.” Things are just that, things. They can be replaced, but people, relationships, 61

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our integrity, our character, our health and the many yesterdays we have watched pass away…these can’t be replaced. We must keep our priorities straight.

Listen to what Ralph Fiennes, a two-time Oscar nominee, has to say about keeping our priorities straight and success, “What’s really scary about being in demand is that, when the world decides you’re a desirable commodity, you haven’t really changed inside. The material rewards are very, very tempting. People think that, to be successful, you’ve got to take the car, the house, the big fee. They haven’t thought about happiness. But recent events in my life have made me ask the question, ‘What is the cost?’”

Fiennes explains why his childhood helped him. “It was a very hand-to-mouth existence, there was very little money. My parents were broke. But we did have an environment at home whereby there was always encouragement to do whatever we wanted to do. The strength of my Catholic ethic underpinning everything, the fabric of the family life, was so strong.”

When asked about his success, “Success? Well, I don’t know quite what you mean by success. Material success? Worldly success?

Personal, emotional success? The people I consider successful are so because of how they handle their responsibilities to other people, how they approach the future, people who have a full sense of the value of their life and what they want to do with it. I call people ‘successful’ not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings—their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.

“Success? Don’t you know it is all about being able to extend 62

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love to people? Really. Not in a big, capital-letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.” Dotson Rader interviewed Mr. Fiennes and wrote an article in Parade Magazine, “Success? What about Happiness?” Mr. Rader did a fine job of bringing out Mr. Fiennes Life Mapping concepts. We should all have our priorities as straight as Ralph Fiennes!

The real gift in giving.

When we are rushing on to our next Goal, excited at the successful completion of another goal, we need to remember to appreciate the people that have helped us along the way. Look for ways to give back to our community, our family, and our friends. This is the best way to insure the opportunity for a happy life for our progeny. The ultimate result of giving is the unexpected gift we receive, the understanding that we have everything we really want and need. “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” - Luke 6:38, we cannot out give God. This feeling of abundance will provide us a new freedom as we share our money and our knowledge with those who eagerly await our gifts. This act empowers those we have chosen to share ourselves with to become greater than they had imagined possible. This happens because we have shown them that someone truly cares, they are important.

Now, sit down and start writing. Write as many different Goals as possible. After we have written them down, we can prioritize them and select only the top one or two in each of life’s four areas to begin working on now. Maintain an active list of goals for future action and continue to prioritize them. We will use them in the future when our schedule permits. Use the paragraphs we have written to 63

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help us visualize ourselves completing those top one or two goals, in each category. This visualization is very important. Our mind will be more focused if it can see us successfully achieving our Goal. We should keep updating our Goals List. This is just the beginning…we will improve this list many times during our lives.

A short review.

This is a good time to review the differences between Beliefs, Principles and Goals.

Our Beliefs List represents the universal truths, as we know them. Our behavior is the living example of our Principles List.

Goals are things we are attempting to achieve, learn or acquire.

So, when we look at a Familial Goal list we might find “facilitate harmony.” A Principle, “I will be cooperative,” is supported by the Belief, ‘”God wants us to be treated fairly.” This Goal is not something we are trying to acquire, it is a state of contentment we are trying to help our family reach.

One final example: Belief…I believe one should follow the laws of the community they choose to live in.

Principle…I will obey all of the laws when I drive.

Goal…I will drive my car from San Jose to San Francisco today, without speeding.

As subtle as these differences sometimes are, it is very important to understand them as we begin to build our lists.

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Chapter 6 – Activities

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hat is our purpose? What are we supposed to contribute to this world? “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” - Romans 8:28, how will we ever know if we don’t try to fulfill our destiny? What we do everyday, our Activities, define us, and our contribution to this world. Some people mistake Activity for achievement. They are so busy doing things they don’t have time to evaluate the results of all that Activity. It is not just any Activity that leads us to our goals; it is a particular set of Activities.

Activities without Goals are unproductive drudgery; Goals without Activities are dreams; when Activities and Goals are combined everything is possible! Our Beliefs List tells why we are alive, our Goals List tells us what we are to do in this life, and our Principles List and Activities List tell us how we will get it done.

Nothing is accomplished until something is done.

The puzzles.

Goals are like puzzles; Activities are like the pieces we use to complete the puzzle, one piece at a time. We take our highest priority Goal and break it into a list of Activities that are necessary for the completion of that Goal. We keep breaking the Activities into smaller and smaller pieces, until each individual Activity can be completed 65

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within a week, or preferably a day. Then we take this list of Activities and put them in chronological order. We follow this procedure for all of the Goals selected. If we select the correct Activities, we will have completed our puzzle, created our masterpiece, our contribution to this world. “The future is not the result of choices among alternate paths offered in the present—it is a place that is created—created first in the mind and will; created next in the activity.”—Walt Disney (1901-1966). Listen to the master of imagination. Walt Disney created what others laughed at as impossible.

Andy Granatelli once said, “When you are making a success of something, it’s not work. It’s a way of life. You enjoy yourself because you are making your contribution to the world.” Our contribution!

Love.

“Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe, to know what he ought to desire, and to know what he ought to do.”—Life Mapping as described by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Over 700 years ago Saint Thomas Aquinas helped people understand that believing, a Belief List, and having Goals, a Goal List, were only the beginning. We have to do something! We have to actively use our Principle List and our Activity List to assist us in achieving our Goals.

Love is the reason this process works. Everything we have done to this point is inspired by our love for the person we want to become.

Love creates an attitude that prepares us for the rest of our journey.

“Love inspires a different kind of behavior than either duty or fear.

If I love my work, I don’t do it for anyone else. I do it because I love it; I want to do it. I revel in it and, chances are, I will have much success and satisfaction in it. If I love my children instead of fearing for them, I don’t restrict them with unrealistic requirements. I trust 66

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them. I teach them. And I let them go out into the great, wide world, prepared and eager to live their own lives.�—Hyrum W. Smith. We should love our lives and those we choose to share them with.

My memories of my grandmother are still vivid. She loved life and shared it with everybody. She created many special adventures for me. Her adventures usually began in the kitchen or the garden.

Initially, I didn’t have much interest in either of them; however, she made them fun. She shared a piece of what she loved with me and before I knew what had happened, I began to love being in the kitchen. To this day, I still love being in the kitchen. As my grandmother demonstrated, we are all teachers. What people will learn from us is a function of who we are and our observable behavior.

It is a rather large responsibility. Few experiences in life equal the joy of successfully mentoring another person. Both participants in the mentoring process are enriched. Whether the person we are mentoring is our own child or a complete stranger, the rewards will be great. We must each take whatever time is required to make sure everyone in our families understands the power of love and that they are loved. Sharing this with someone outside our family is the next step.

The habits we develop, as we attempt to show our love of others, can be virtues or vices. When they are in alignment with our Beliefs and support our individual development, they are virtues. There are two components of Life Mapping, Principles and Activities; that can become habits. Repeating Principles or Activities that support our purpose will eventually make them habits and, of course, virtues.

If we have taken the time to think a situation through once, it only makes sense to develop it into a habit. There is no sense doing the same work twice. Forming habits frees our mind to work on more creative things. Even more importantly, when they become habits 67

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we perform them more successfully. We should work to acquire each habit we desire.

This is the Principle at work in athletics. This is why they spend so much time practicing. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”—Aristotle (384-322 BC).

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HABIT I am your constant companion.

I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.

I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.

I am completely at your command.

Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed— you must merely be firm with me.

Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men; and alas, of all failures, as well.

Those who are great, I have made great.

Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man.

You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin— it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.

Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am habit!

- Anonymous, from The Five Rituals of Wealth

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Parameters can influence results.

The achievement of Goals will require more than the identifying of Activities necessary to accomplish them. We will also need to know the parameters that define our ability to achieve the Goal. So, this would include thinking about whether we need a special environment, lighting, music, food, etc.; the number of hours per week we will need to be successful; who’s help we will need; the money required to make the endeavor successful. Defining the parameters provides the limits necessary for deciding on the Activities required to accomplish our Goals. This is the first step in determining Activities.

We can free ourselves from past mistakes.

When our behavior or Activities are in conflict with our purpose, the correct response is to acknowledge it, devise a plan to minimize the possibility of repeating it and then forget about it. Don’t spend another minute thinking about it. It is history. Listen to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1914-1994), “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

Jesus dealt with this same Principle in Luke 9:62, “And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” The Principle is simple, if we are looking at the past, we cannot find the perfect future!

Enjoy the journey.

The Activities List we create for our Goals will change as we face the choices that life will bring. Don’t get stuck on the Activities, 70

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keep the Goal in mind. When we plan and review each week, we will have the opportunity to change our Activities as needed to reach our Goals. Remember, we are doing these Activities out of love, not fear or duty! Learn to enjoy the Activities required to reach our Goal. If we don’t enjoy the Activity, search for an alternate one that we do enjoy that will lead to the achievement of the Goal.

These Activities are the roads that lead us to our destination, and there is always a scenic road somewhere. “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” - Psalms 16:11, we can ask God to show us that scenic road. Think of the beautiful, enjoyable alternate choice as taking the more scenic road to Grandma’s house. We still get there, maybe a few minutes later, but we enjoyed the trip. Goals are like long journeys completed one-step or Activity at a time.

When my son was young one of his heroes was He-Man. He is a fictional character in the Master’s of the Universe cartoon.

Hollywood decided to make a movie to capitalize on the popularity of the cartoon. Of course, my son and I went to see the movie. We enjoyed the movie. Near the end someone is celebrating the moment of victory over the evil Skelator when He-Man responds, “Live the journey, for the destination is but the doorway to the next journey!”

Suddenly, I realized that he had summarized life. We are here to reach destinations, fulfill our purpose, but we are supposed to enjoy doing it. Begin to look at things as if we had never seen them before or that we might never see them again. We must cultivate our senses. Learn to appreciate the subtle nuances. Do we smell the fresh bread baking? Savor the moments. Did we hear the children laughing in the park? Instead of hurrying through lunch, make it an experience. Eat with a friend or try a new restaurant or discover a special spot in our homes. Make the selection of the food interesting; 71

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try new combinations of tastes. Think about the wonderful tastes and the magic of seed, soil, sun and water that made it all possible.

Soon it will become an event we look forward to. Take the time to plan and make it more than just eating. Read a little poetry or a fun book. Smell the flowers along the way, feel the sunshine on our faces, watch the squirrel race up the tree, listen to the leaves crunch under our feet.

Those that contemplate the beauty this world holds for us, will find a sense of peace and strength that will endure a lifetime. Drink in the wonder that surrounds. Don’t let the vision of the Goal spoil the joy to be found in the Activities.

Enjoying the Activities might sound strange to someone who is doing something they don’t like. Most importantly, we should not be doing something we don’t like. Get rid of that job and find a rewarding career, one that brings us joy! This is not a rehearsal; this is our life. Make it fun. Find a career that is fun. What if we have obligations that make leaving our job difficult? Plan for the transition to a rewarding career. For some this might require several years. The years will pass whether we plan or not. We might as well do the planning and be in a position to make the transition when the time is right. Of course, finding a career is part of the goal setting process and, hopefully, we have resolved that issue in the last chapter.

Delegation.

Now, what do we do about those career Activities we don’t like doing? We learn to delegate them to other people. We don’t think they can do them as well as we can? Then, teach them, have confidence in them and take every opportunity to encourage and congratulate them. It isn’t a complicated process. We explain their responsibilities, in enough detail to allow them to complete the 72

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Activity. Make sure they know we have confidence in their ability to successfully complete the Activity and give them the authority to successfully accomplish it.

There is nothing more frustrating than being given a task and not the authority to accomplish it. For example, if we asked our employee to reorganize a filing system without giving them the authority to buy the needed supplies, every time they found they were short something they would have to come to us for permission to buy it. This shows that we don’t trust their judgment and weakens their confidence for future decisions. However, if we gave them the authority to buy whatever is needed, they will complete the task and be ready for the next one.

If we are the employees, we have to have the courage to explain this concept to the person giving the orders and request the authority necessary to complete the task assigned. They will respect us for our initiative and their opinion of us will be elevated. If they respond negatively, we should probably look elsewhere for employment.

After a task is completed, we need to compliment the person we have delegated the task to, on the work they completed successfully, and explain any areas that could be improved next time. “Over the years I have become convinced that every detail is important and that success usually accompanies attention to little details. It is this, in my judgment, that makes for the difference between champion and near champion.”—John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach, ever!

To illustrate the impact that John Wooden has had on UCLA basketball, listen to what a former player was quoted saying some twenty years after Wooden’s retirement, “Repetition is what gives you confidence, keep working and good things happen.”—Cameron Dollar, San Francisco Chronicle.

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Pay attention to the details. Soon, those marvelous people we have delegated to, will be doing those things better than we could.

Especially, since we don’t like doing them.

Fun and focus.

There are some Activities we can’t delegate. This is where that wonderful imagination we were given comes into play. Play is the optimum word. Remember, never lose sight of the Goal, however, if we are certain that an Activity is part of reaching the Goal, we need to develop ways to make the Activity fun. Turn the Activity into a game, we could time the Activity, or add minor challenges into it. If our Activity is calling customers to check on their satisfaction with a service, we could see how many we can make laugh during the call.

Keep track. We could put a score sheet on our desk and a set record for most laughing calls in an hour.

We should make our work area as pleasant a place to be as possible.

If we like flowers or family pictures, place them where they can add pleasure to our day. Suddenly, the calling will become a game and we will be having fun. The hour will pass much more quickly. Another key point to Activities is that they require our focus. If we are to maximize the results achieved in reaching our Goal, we must maximize the results for each Activity. Once we are performing an Activity, forget about the Goal, we will think about the Goal when we plan and review each week, focus on the Activity. The more times we successfully perform the Activity the easier it becomes to repeat that success.

Southwest Airlines ran a television ad featuring a dog, his bone and the concept of focusing. The ad incites us to focus on their message by repeatedly using the phrase find the bone. Each time they insert a picture of the dog finding a bone. Of course, they are hoping we are focusing on their airline’s benefits at the same time.

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Focusing and being able to successfully repeat an action is what athletes call entering the zone. When we are in the zone we don’t need to think about each step in the Activity, we just need to keep focused. We can’t let anything distract us. The best way to get an athlete out of their zone is disrupt their concentration. This is why teams call time out just before a key field goal is to be kicked or a key free throw is about to be shot. They want the person attempting the Activity to have time to think about other things; maybe a doubt will sneak in to disrupt their focus.

So, we can have fun and focus, since every Activity we are doing is the most important one we have to do at that time, or we would be doing something else! This is one of the major benefits of Life Mapping, we always know what is the most important thing to do.

Lists are good “When the adrenaline is running you forget things, so, you need to have checklists!”—Admiral Bidcoff. The Admiral has identified a very important organizational concept. Routines, habits, are formed through repetitive action. Unfortunately, until Activities have become habits, and sometimes even after they have become habits, we need checklists to make sure we are accomplishing everything we set out to. This is where we decide which of the Activities on our list are repetitive. If we only have to do the Activity one time, don’t worry about establishing a habit. However, if we will be doing it hundreds of times over our lifetimes, we need to take the time to think it though.

Write down the steps involved. When we think we have optimized the Activity, make it a habit! Do it by using our checklist every time we do the Activity, until we can do it perfectly without looking at the list. Keep the list; we might need a refresher next year.

Think of it as our form of baseball’s spring training. It is very 75

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interesting to think that professional baseball players, the best in the world at their game, get together for two months to practice the fundamentals before each season starts. We should do no less. After all, isn’t becoming the person we want to become as important as a baseball season?

What about failure What Activities will be required to reach our Goals? Some of them will be uncomfortable. We can’t stay in the same rut and still expect to reach new Goals. Becoming uncomfortable is part of the solution, so is failing. We have to fail to learn, we have to fail to have the opportunity to succeed. Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs. He struck out 1,330 times. Failing to succeed now has a new meaning; don’t be afraid to fail, it is but another step on the road to success! “The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fail.”—Chinese proverb. Every failure can make us stronger, as long as we don’t give up. They make each success that much more rewarding. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” - Revelations 21:7.

Patience and faith.

A farmer doesn’t plant a crop on a Wednesday expecting to harvest the next day. The farmer prepares the ground, plants the crop, waters and fertilizes when necessary. All the while the farmer has faith that months later there will be a crop to harvest. We are preparing the ground by completing this map. The activities we do over the next few months are the planting, watering and fertilizing.

They will produce results, if we have the faith of a farmer. Just as the farmer wouldn’t forget to water the fields, even though they show no sign of growth we shouldn’t forget to do those Activities we have 76

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determined necessary for the accomplishment of our Goals, even if there are no visible signs of progress. One day we will find ourselves harvesting the successes we have dreamed of our whole life.

Budgeting.

Money will not bring us happiness. However, mismanagement of money will bring us pressures that can affect our happiness.

Therefore, we need to live within a budget. Our career will provide an income. Careful planning will allow us to give to those less fortunate, save for retirement and still pay our current bills. Without a budget, no amount of income will be enough. We will continue to find new ways to outspend our increased income. The budgeting process begins with an accurate accounting of our take home income.

We should find a way to have our withholding come as close to our final tax bill as possible. We should not have a large refund, nor owe money on April 15th.

Ten percent of our net income should go into some kind of retirement account and another ten percent should go to those less fortunate. A third ten percent should go to reduce our outstanding debt, credit cards or lines of credit. Nothing should be charged, until all of our debt is paid off. Once all our debt is paid, charge only what we can pay off completely each month out of the seventy percent we will use to pay our monthly bills. Since our debt is paid, we can now begin using that ten percent to build a reserve fund, savings account or money market account; that equals six months of our net income. When the reserve fund is built, this same ten percent should begin building a long-term goal fund. A long-term goal fund is what we use to pay for things like a new car, a down payment on a home or to pay for our children’s college education. This leaves us the remaining seventy percent to pay those monthly bills. Sure, there 77

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are emergencies, but buying a new suit or shoes are not emergencies.

Paying for repairs to our car, because our brakes went out, is an emergency. Those real emergencies will come out of our long-term goal fund. Now, take that seventy percent and decide how to spend it each month. Remember, this is all there is to spend! There are sample budgets in the Appendix.

The budgeting process is a wonderful way to introduce our children to the fine art of money management. My wife, Gail, and I began having weekly Family Council meetings when our children were ages six and eight. The meetings covered a variety of topics; happy things that happened the prior week, each of us gave an award to someone in the family that did something special the past week, a discussion regarding any new problems that came up during the week that needed to be solved, a fun family activity for the day, and of course, budgeting. They each had their own checking account at the Bank of Gail and Bill.

When Gail took the kids to the grocery store and they wanted her to buy them a toy or some candy, she simply asked them if they had enough money in the bank and did they really want to spend it now. If they said they did, they wrote out a check and they took the item home. If they didn’t have enough money, they weren’t able to make that purchase and they learned a valuable lesson, and Gail was saved from the battle over the item. They were continually making their own decisions and learning that they would have to live with that decision. Each week at the meeting they received their allowance. The first decision they had to make was how much they wanted to save, for college and their first car.

Looking back on it, we should have included a donation to a charity, but at the time we weren’t giving that much ourselves; a regret that we have corrected. They learned some wonderful lessons; 78

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decision making, money management, conflict resolution, selecting and organizing fun activities, running meetings, participating in meetings, appreciating the wonderful things that happened each week, and the special things other family members did for them.

This was the second most important habit we established in the raising of our children. The most important was to provide a consistent and united image. We never disagreed, in front of children, on decisions involving them. Therefore, they always knew where they stood and that they could not use one of us against the other. If one of them asked me if they could do something, I would ask if they had asked their mother. If they had, I would agree with her decision. If I disagreed with her decision, Gail and I would talk about it privately.

We would not change that decision, but we came to an agreement on a united answer the next time we faced a similar situation. If they hadn’t asked Gail, I would give my opinion but couched it with, “go see if it is ok with your mother.” I am proud to say our children, now 31 and 33, are a constant joy to both of us.

Hail the doer.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”—Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). We must dare to do great things! Listen to 79

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Jesus tell us about the rewards our Father has for us, as He tells us to “fear not.” “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” - Luke 12:32. We will never regret the effort!

As we view our Activities List, we should think of the transitions we will be making as part of a life long path of personal learning and self-discovery. We can enjoy the Activities and the positive changes they will make in our lives.

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Chapter 7 – To Do List

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eveloping a To Do List is not time management, in the traditional sense. It is more akin to putting a puzzle together, in chronological order. We have the pieces, our Activities, and we begin to put them together to form a picture, the picture of our ideal day, in the order that best supports our lifestyle. Most people’s picture of their normal day is chaos. The fear of looking at that chaotic picture has kept them from actually working on improving it.

They are missing one of the most powerful messages ever known. It has been repeated numerous times over the past 2,500 years. When our actions are in alignment with our inner blueprint we will find an inner peace that cannot be attained any other way. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” - Isaiah 26:3. We are no longer fighting ourselves. We no longer need to fight with others. It is a beautiful picture that will bring admiration from all that witness it.

Getting started We begin by taking the Activities we have identified on our Activities List and decide whether they are repetitive in nature. If we will do them everyday, or every week, we add them to our To Do List. If they are more sporadic, we will add them to our daily pended Activities list, usually in Outlook or a similar program. We then 81

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determine the chronological order for those Activities on our To Do List. This allows us to create a physical monthly checklist version of our To Do List, which we will use each day to mark off Activities completed that day. A sample of this monthly checklist version of the To Do List can be found at the end of this chapter. Now each day we use our To Do List and Outlook to determine what we need to do each day.

We can think back to the last time we used a road map. We selected that map because it helped us decide on a route that was most pleasing to us. This route helped us reach our destination.

How restricting was that? We used a map - some would not want to be so restricted. We decided on a route - what happened to spontaneity? We reached our destination - but wasn’t it forced?

Can we see the parallels between this To Do List and that map?

Our To Do List is the itinerary we have created for our life. When we complete a day with our To Do List, we will understand the freedom it brings. The relief from the stress brought about by others trying to influence our Activities. The satisfaction in reaching the goals we have established and the happiness we receive because we followed the route that brought us enjoyment and pleasure while achieving our goals will be more than enough reward for our efforts. The sense of accomplishment that comes from crossing off each completed Activity will bring a surprising amount of pleasure.

Freedom at last This is a good time to discuss the use of the To Do List. It is not a prison we are trapped in, it is our guide on life’s trail. It is a way to integrate our plan into our lives. We are to use it to help us make the best choices each day. We should not expect to ever have an ideal 82

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day. It is only a tool. Maybe this will help us feel less confined. Also, remember that it is a living To Do List and we need to keep changing it to fit our current needs.

Now, back to completing our To Do List. The next Activity to put on our To Do List is something we probably don’t have on our Activity list, a time for planning. We should identify the first, and/ or the last, 15 to 30 minutes each day for reviewing our last day and planning the next. This is the time we see how good a job we did on completing the Activities on our To Do List. Anything left undone can be added to the next day’s To Do List. This is how we keep on the path we have created for our lives. We are reminded, daily, that we have planned and selected Activities that need to be done that day. Without this Activity chaos will creep into our days. Time and other people will separate us from our Goals and the Activities that lead to the their achievement.

During our planning time, we should ask ourselves some questions. Was our behavior in line with our Principle List? Did we correctly prioritize our Activities and did we do the things that really matter most? Could we have done anything any better?

Once a week we should invest 10 or 15 minutes to look at the whole week. This gives us an overview of our progress on a scale that is small enough to make the necessary adjustments while they are still small adjustments. The time we take to plan and reflect on our week will increase our confidence, clarify our Activities and reinforce our Goal List, reducing the likelihood of becoming overwhelmed. We will discover important things about ourselves and find our untapped potential. Time set aside for planning will also allow us to unwind and restore our vital resources. We need to keep reflecting on balance and harmonize our Activities.

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Time management has its place We can’t ignore time management, if we plan on improving our lives. There are some time management techniques that will provide us with those extra hours we need to accomplish our goals. First, we must understand that everyone has the same 168 hours each week to accomplish the Goals we have selected. If we use them lying in bed we won’t have any time left to work on our Goals. Each minute of our day will be filled by an Activity. We will choose those Activities. If we misuse this freedom we will waste our lives. If we are to start our career Activities at 9:00 am and we are still in bed, how can we be successful?

How would we feel if you went to our dental appointment at 9:00 am and they told us that the dentist was still in bed? What would we do if they asked us to take a seat in the waiting room and that we would be the third patient he saw when he arrived? What would we think of that dentist? How well did he prioritize his Activities? Time management is nothing more than getting our priorities straight and doing the supporting Activities in a timely manner.

So, let’s go over the key elements of time management. By the way, we are way ahead of most people, since we have identified our priority Activities. Most people are still trying to not think about their chaotic lives. Practicing time saving techniques will free up the time we need to not only complete our current To Do List, but to allow us to add additional Goals from our Goals List.

• We cannot waste time trying to change things we have no control over. Accept them, adapt to them and move on.

• We must keep in touch with reality. Wasting time in Activities that disconnect us from reality; daydreaming, drugs, TV, etc.; steals our opportunities for success. An occasional recreation is good for us, but chronic use or abuse is self-defeating.

• We should repeat Activities that increase our self-esteem and 84

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avoid those that reduce it. How do we feel about ourselves after we do an Activity? If we feel good about ourselves, it increased our self-esteem. We are not looking for the amount of fun associated with an Activity. What we are looking for here is whether the Activity is a positive factor in the development of our self-esteem. We are in control, we should not blame others or circumstances for Activities that lower our self-esteem. We must change them!

• We should use our Life Map, our guide, daily. The farther we get from our guide the greater the possibility our environment or other people will get us off track. Ultimately, we could get lost.

• Maintain the planning habit. Every minute we invest in planning will return from 3 to 30 minutes back in future time saved.

Planning builds upon itself and we will keep getting better and better, thus increasing the time returned for the time invested.

• We need to learn to manage those things that present themselves as urgent. Most urgent Activities, and they will pop up everyday, should not immediately replace the planned priority Activity currently scheduled. We need to learn to minimize those interruptions. Have our calls screened at work, or let them go to voicemail, and return them during a time reserved for that Activity. Learn to leave complete messages and ask that others do the same. This will minimize telephone tag. Use e-mail whenever possible.

• Use a single calendar system. Avoid duplicating entries. The physical tool we will need to maintain our schedule should be small enough for us to carry wherever we go. It should include an area for each day of the year, as well as sections for our phone list and any other lists we feel we need. Most smart phones and tablets can handle all of these components.

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• We must organize our work areas. Everything we use regularly should be within our reach, without leaving our chair.

• The next Activity we should add to our Life Map is one of the most dynamic concepts in time management. We should find a place in our schedules for organizational time. Two hours a week will be more than adequate for most people. What do we do during this time? We develop short cuts that will save us time for the rest of our lives. Like what? Like creating and maintaining a current contact list and having it with us at all times. That sounds simple enough, but how is this going to save us time? This Activity might take two hours initially and an additional hour annually. This one Activity will save us approximately 10 hours annually, because we will not be looking around for ways to contact people. This means we have just acquired an additional seven hours the first year and nine hours every year thereafter. We should keep an ongoing list of Activities that are repetitive, like using an app on our smart phones to record our expenses. At the end of the year, this app will total our expenses in categories and even allow us to download the information into a tax program that will do our taxes for us. A big time saver! During our organizational time, each week, we can look at the list and decide which Activity would produce the biggest savings in time, energy and/or a reduction in frustration. That is the one we need to work on next.

• One of those other lists we should consider is a “Spare Time To Do List,” as a note on our smart phones. This list is for all of the things we need to do that are not time sensitive.

Like picking up the clothes from the cleaners or a spare bottle 86

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of contact solution. Then when we find ourselves near the cleaners or with time to spare we can pull out our list and accomplish something. Of course, it is always a good idea to have a good book around for those very same moments. • Take 100% responsibility in all communications. In conversations, repeat important information using different wording or ask the other person to do that, so that we may make sure that we properly communicated that information.

This is a big time saver as it reduces duplicate activities and the possibility of the severe consequences that sometimes follows miscommunications.

Occasionally we need a break One important point to remember, whenever we are feeling overwhelmed or over-scheduled, we MUST take a break and look at our To Do List. If we need to adjust the To Do List, do it. If, however, it is a temporary event that has caused the discomfort, do not change the To Do List just make an adjustment that day or week. Some people let this event cause them to give up on planning and scheduling. This is a big mistake. Just think about the beautiful picture we have created and don’t let anyone or anything destroy it.

Another Activity we should include in our planning time is a review of our Goals. Read the list, close our eyes and think about the Goals. Do not think about the Activities. These mini-reviews will lead to future changes in our Goals and Activity Lists. Whenever we find some free time during the day, we can take that opportunity to enjoy a mini-review. The more we do this Activity the sooner we will reach our Goals. The mind is always working on solutions, even when we are enjoying a break.

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Now we are ready to add the Activities from our Activities List to our To Do List. Think of the puzzle example, where would each of these Activities best fit chronologically into our ideal day or week. Take the time and think about potential conflicts we might be creating. We need to take our biological clock into consideration.

Schedule our most important or strenuous work during the time of the day that we are most alert. Our To Do Lists need to be compatible with our spouse and children’s ideal schedules. Make sure to leave enough time between Activities, as well as enough time for the Activity itself. Remember, the goal of creating our To Do List, is to have the Activities listed in the order we are most likely to complete them in a day. There is no need to hurry through this part of our Life Mapping process, as our To Do Lists will continually change for the rest of our lives. We must be flexible enough to recognize the need to change and be proactive enough to actually change. We should step back and look at the whole picture regularly. We should ask ourselves, “Am I really happy with my To Do List?”

Once we set our feet upon this path we will continually improve the life we are developing. It is much easier to strike out on a new trail when we have a guide to follow. Outside influences will no longer negatively affect our daily behavior. This is the definition of character. “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”—John Wooden (1910-2010). There are many athletes, entertainers, entrepreneurs, etc., that could have benefited from this advice. Continue to build that character and we will reap the rewards our growing self-esteem will provide! “When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”—German Motto Now, we are ready to begin putting the pieces of the puzzle together. This is our first To Do List, it doesn’t have to be perfect!

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Sample To Do List, a monthly checklist version.

Day of Week Weigh In

P3a

Coffee

P1b

Plan day - write today's "To Do" list

F1a

Pray

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

T u

W

T h

F

Sa

Su

M

T u

W

Th

F

Sa

Su

M

Sp2b

Study Bible Verses

S2a

Work on Life Mapping

S3b

Watch "It Is Written"

Sp2d

VIBE

P1c

Stretch & Jumping Jacks

P2b

Walk

P2a

Breakfast

P3b

Golf Or Practice Golf

S4a

Bands Resistance Workout

P2c

Lunch

P3b

SF Work

S1a

Dinner

P3c

Review Day

F1a

Fun

F2a

In Menlo

October 2013

To Do List

Sample To Do List, a monthly checklist version.

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Chapter 8 – How To

S

o, how will we ever find the time to start this process? No problem! We can attack the problem a number of different ways.

We could pretend we are off to boot camp, preparing for the war of a lifetime, and we could give up all Activities that are not mandatory for the next few weeks. Of course, we should go to work, unless we have some unused vacation time. Examples of things we can give up: TV; reading the newspaper or magazines; answering the phone, turn on our answer machines to cut down on interruptions; tell our friends we can’t socialize for a few weeks, boot camp ahead; cut the cleaning to a minimum; eat less complicated meals; put as many of our bills on automatic payment as possible; take some time off from civic or volunteer commitments. We can also get up a little earlier or stay up a little later.

Using the time productively is important. Find a quiet space where we are not likely to be interrupted. Remember, this is just for a few weeks. It will be well worth the effort and our family, friends, and that civic organization will appreciate the positive changes it will have in our lives. One of the goals of this boot camp experience should be to look for ways to accomplish our goals while keeping our lives as simple as possible. Simple means we would not schedule unnecessary activities and would look for less complicated solutions for those necessary activities.

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Downshifting I read an article, in a Kiwanis magazine, by Samuel Greengard, The Upshot of ‘Downshifting.’ Mr Greengard describes a trend that began in the 1990’s called, ‘downshifting,’ which the Trends Research Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, called one of the hottest movements of the 90’s. A November 1995 US News and World Report magazine is quoted as estimating that some 4 percent of all baby boomers have already taken to ‘downshifting’—a figure that could rise to 15 percent by the year 2000. So, what is ‘downshifting?’ It is the dumping of that high paying, overly stressful job for a simpler, more balanced and fulfilling life. Sound familiar? Mr. Greengard warns, “Psychological issues also can take a toll. Those who ‘downshift’ must suddenly figure out how to structure their day, find their own sense of accomplishment and reward, and use entirely different factors to gauge success.” Relax Mr. Greengard, all ‘downshifters’ need is a little time to create their Life Map. Former CEO-turned-professor William Wilson says, “Instead of investing all of my time and energy to watch a business grow. I now invest in students—and I can often see the direct payoff from all my efforts.” Mr. Wilson is earning one-sixth the income he gave up in the corporate world, but he and his wife are enjoying their new simpler lifestyle. They gave up a 3,500 square foot home in California for a 1,400 square foot condo in a Chicago suburb and a less stressful schedule. Some would benefit from a similar move.

Personal Coaches We have all heard of personal trainers. Now, there are personal coaches. They help people keep their lives in shape by coaching them either in person or over the telephone on a regular basis. If we have 91

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difficulty developing our Life Map or maintaining our schedule, we could consider hiring a personal coach to assist us.

We need to make sure the person we hire is certified and has Life Mapping experience. This form of support can be very important during the habit-forming portion of the process. Once our habits are formed, our need for assistance will be diminished. If we use a personal coach to create our original Life Map, we should consider using the same coach for our first couple of revisions.

The Process Now, let us make one last review of the process. * We will begin by determining our Belief List. This list will grow out of our concept of creation and humanity’s purpose. * Secondly, we will develop our Principles List, making sure that every Principle on the list is supported by one of our Beliefs.

Without this support, we will be unable to live our Principles when they are truly tested. * Thirdly, we will decide on our Goals in each of the four areas of life. We will keep the balance in our lives and the balance will allow us to achieve our maximum potential. * The fourth step is the dividing of our Goals into the Activities necessary to achieve those Goals. We continue to break them into smaller and smaller pieces, until we can complete each of the pieces in a week, or preferably a day. * The fifth and final step is to design a To Do List that includes all of the Activities on our Activities List. We will update it often, looking at it as many times a day as it takes for us to live it.

Goals should be reexamined monthly for the first three to six months. Sometime during those first six months we will switch to quarterly or annual reviews depending on the number of changes that 92

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were needed in the prior period. This process is not about changing who we are every month, quarter or year. It is about adding depth to the person we are becoming. Like a painter that adds layers of paint over their original sketch, until one day they can step back and look at the masterpiece they have created. Remember, this is a growing experience and our Life Map is the living document that makes it possible. Keep improving it. As we update our Life Maps we should keep our old copies. They will become a permanent record of our progress.

Frequently Asked Questions Q. Why do we have to have a Belief supporting each of our Principles?

A. Beliefs are the reasons we do things, the “Why”. Principles are part of the “How” we do things. In the absence of “Why”, we will only do what pleases or benefits us. The “How” becomes unimportant without the “Why”. Moses believed in the Ten Commandments because God gave them to him. God was the “Why” and the Ten Commandments were the “How”. If we want to follow our Principles, our “How”, we must support it with one of our Beliefs, our “Why”.

Q. Should we use the same To Do List every day?

A. We will probably never have a day that we complete all of the Activities on our To Do List. We should continue to use it as a guide until we need to change the Activities currently on our To Do List or the order of the Activities. Few people will use the same To Do List for more than a few months. As we evolve, our Goals will change and so will the Activities required for us to reach them. We must keep our To Do List current. Remember, this is a tool to help us complete the Activities that are required to reach our Goals. Our To Do List will increase the odds of our 93

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reaching our Goals and speed the process. We are the masters, not the To Do Lists. Update it often!

Q. What do we do about Activities that we were unable to complete?

A. Each day, during our planning time, we should identify unfinished Activities and, if possible, complete them within the next few days. Sometimes that is not possible. If the Activity was date or time sensitive, a concert, we missed it, forget about it. Plan to go to the next one.

Q. How detailed should I make my Activities list for a particular Goal?

A. We should continue to break the Goal down into smaller and smaller Goals, individual Activities, until each of the Activities can be completed within a week, or preferably a day. Our test question should be, “Can I complete this Activity this week?� If the answer is no, we need to continue to break it into smaller Activities.

Q. How do I know what I really believe?

A. Our true Belief system will evolve from our concept of how it all began and our purpose. We cannot short cut this process. If we do, we will end up with a Belief system in name only and it will not be able to support our Principles List. We need to take the time to necessary to decide what we truly believe about how it all began. Then, we need to use a logical thought process to determine our purpose for being here. When Henry Ford developed the assembly line for the gasoline-powered automobile in 1893, he created it. His purpose was to offer an alternative to the horse that would one day be accessible to the average person.

The purpose of the automobile was to transport people and make long distance travel possible for the masses. How were we 94

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created? Why? What is our purpose for being here? Our Belief system is the natural result of the answers to these questions.

Q. How old is the Life Mapping process?

A. Life Mapping, as described in this book, is 16 years old. It has evolved from teachings that are thousands of years old. Fads come and go, but wisdom is ageless. Socrates taught his students, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Until we really know ourselves, we will feel incomplete, we will be plagued by conflict and we will never feel true happiness.

Q. I can just see myself checking my To Do List every half hour to see what’s next. Does the To Do List ever become second nature?

A. Within a few weeks the Activities on the To Do List will become habits. We will review our To Do Lists several times per day. The To Do List will need to be updated as Activities and Goals are completed and new ones are added, but we will not be looking at it every half hour.

Q. I just got sidetracked from my To Do List due to unforeseen circumstances.

What happens to the Activities that are not completed today?

A. If they still need to be done, reschedule them for the following day. Some Activities, such as praying, walking or attending church, would not be rescheduled. We just forget about them and try not to miss them tomorrow.

Q. Do I use the same To Do List week after week?

A. We use the same To Do List until Activities and Goals are completed, new ones are added, or some of them require a modification. We might have to change our To Do List to 95

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account for changes in Activities that we have no control over.

As an example, our company changes our hours and we have to come in at 8:00 instead of 9:00.

Q. Life Mapping seems like it would be hard to employ without the help of family members. How do I maintain my Map when my family members are not using a Life Map? A. We share our Life Maps with them and work on dealing with necessary conflicts as we would Activities we have no control over.

Q. A friend drops by, the phone won’t stop ringing, a traffic jam, my kid needs help with homework; unplanned interruptions like these will inevitably happen. How can we possibly deal with them when they do?

A. We cannot plan for these unforeseen events. We deal with them as they come up and make the necessary adjustments in our To Do Lists, if possible, for the interrupted Activities. Remember, our To Do List is the ideal and we will probably never live a perfect day, much less a perfect week.

Q. I can see myself following my To Do List for a couple of weeks, and then losing steam. Any tips on how to keep at it?

A. Post those Life Maps in as many prominent places as possible.

Give copies to as many of our family members, friends and coworkers as we can, asking them to remind us if they see us off track. If we find ourselves less motivated, we need to take out those paragraphs we wrote describing our Goals and reread them. Get that feeling back. Once we stick with the process for a few weeks, three or four, most of our To Do List will have already become habit.

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Ask for help Coach Ben Parks, a local community hero, is a man who coached football and wrestling for almost 40 years at Menlo-Atherton High School. He served as a trainer for the San Francisco 49ers for nearly 25 years, training athletes like Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Roger Craig and Ronnie Lott. He volunteered many hours serving the boys and girls in his community. He was a great role model that demonstrated devotion to self-improvement through discipline, training and a higher set of values. Coach Parks said, “I like to be called a role model, because once you have that pressure, you’re inclined to live that way.”

Another reason to have a Life Map and to share with others.

Sharing our Life Maps with people we love tells them what we are trying to do. Sure, there is some risk here, but we will find that these people love us and want to help us. They are on our side. They want us to be happy. Many of the problems we have with these people stem from their inability to help us. When we show them our Life Maps, we also need to tell them what we expect from them.

We should expect kindly reminders when our behavior is in conflict with our stated Principles or Activities. Some people will use a single word, like “helping”, or a hand signal, like one finger pointing to the sky. When we hear or see the signal, we immediately know we need to correct our behavior. Did we give that person control over us? No! We gave that person the permission to help us gain control over ourselves. The final decision will always be ours.

We will be very surprised at how willing and encouraging these people will be. We should offer to return the favor if there is any area they feel they need help. Remember, we are forming a team to help us create the positive habits that will lead us to our nobler part.

The stronger we become, the more we will have to share with others. Sharing will speed our development. As much as we try to 97

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give to others, we will find that more keeps coming back to us. God promises us in Malichi 3:10, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” This is one of the natural laws, the more we truly give of ourselves, the greater we become and the more we are able to give. “Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.”—Alexandra Stoddard, Living a Beautiful Life (Avon). We should let others help us and help as many of them as we can.

Are you dead?

On April 9, 1995, Bill Cosby gave a lecture at Howard University on “Contributing to Society.” This lecture was aired on CSPAN2.

The real title should have been “Are you dead?” He was addressing the students and faculty of the university. Throughout the lecture he pointed to unconscious behaviors that are detrimental to our society and followed them by asking, “Are you dead?” He began referring to people with these behaviors as “dead people.” His definition of a “dead person” is someone that has given up. “Someone that is accepting life as it comes to them. They buy albums that debase society. They go to movies that promote random sex and graphic violence. They are twelve-year old girls who have so little respect for themselves that they go out and get pregnant. They are crack dealers who peddle death to support their own habits. They are fifth generation residents of the projects.”

“Have you given up on yourself? Do you buy albums or go to movies that are sending us negative images? Are you making up excuses for your failures or deviant behavior? Do you show the proper respect for your elders, the younger people, and yourself?”

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“You know when you do something wrong. Get on with your life and quit making excuses. Be good at whatever you do, don’t settle for being a professional ‘C’ student or person.

Make sure you are leaving something for those that will follow you. Go out into the community and find as many “dead people” as you can and help them. Disassociate yourself from stereotyping. You want people to accept you as an individual, so why would you lump others into groups?”

“Anyone have a problem with parenting? You need to teach your children right from wrong. That is what being a parent is about. You have to discuss the problems you are facing, because, they won’t be solved by shaking a finger at them. You’re hungry for truth, honesty and fairness. So, don’t settle for half-truths from your leaders. Don’t be afraid to demand what is right for you and for others. You can be our heroes. But it won’t happen by itself. You have to make an honest effort to make a difference.” Bill Cosby’s version of Life Mapping.

“If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.”—James Michener (19071997). In the process of finding ourselves, we need to remember to enjoy each moment. “Stay in the moment and make each day your masterpiece.”—John Wooden in San Francisco Chronicle. John Wooden is an example of a man that lived his Life Map. He created his masterpiece! Will we create ours?

Don’t let ourselves down!

Hopefully, we will complete our lives without regrets. When I pass into the next lifetime, I will not be compared to Moses, Buddha or Jesus. I will be compared to the person I was capable of becoming.

I will not let myself down! “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.”—Socrates.

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This reminds me of another poem by Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) and here are a few lines: Compensation I’d like to think that here and there, When I am gone, there shall remain A happier spot that might have not Existed had I toiled for gain; Again, I recommend you read the whole poem to fully understand how important his point truly is!

How will we know when our Life Map is directing us down the right path? When at the end of the day, we feel a little calmer than we did yesterday. When our daily behavior and actions come ever closer to representing the person we want to become. And ultimately, when we can ponder our yesterdays without regrets and our tomorrows without fears, then we are on the correct path!

Why should we change? Because, we are not yet perfect! As we change and update our Life Maps, we may want to reread this book.

Be patient, there are no quick fixes. As our lives improve and things become clearer, our understanding of this material will deepen. We will see and understand things we missed in the first reading. The compound effect of multiple readings will astound us.

At the beginning of this book we were asked whether we would act. The answer was, we would if we are ready. I hope we are ready!

Each day that passes is another day lost. We must begin to seek our nobler part, today! Matthew 7:7; “seek, and ye shall find.” If we are a seeker, we have found our answer. This is the process that will help us find ourselves. Let the musicians make music! The best is yet to be!

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Chapter 9 – Appendix

Sample Budgets Gross Monthly Incomes Taxes Net Monthly Income

$2,000 $3,000 $5,000 $8,000 $15,000 $20,000 $25,000 $160

$300

$600 $1,200 $2,550 $4,000 $6,250

$1,840 $2,700 $4,400 $6,800 $12,450 $16,000 $18,750

Retirement-10%

$184

$270

$440

$680

$1,245 $1,600

$1,875

Charity-10%

$184

$270

$440

$680

$1,245 $1,600

$1,875

$440

$680

$1,245 $1,600

$1,875

Debt/Rsrve/Lg Trm-10%

$184

$270

Housing-35%

$644

$945 $1,540 $2,380 $4,358 $5,600 $6,563

Food-11%

$202

$297

$484

$748

$1,370

$1,760 $2,063

Leisure-8%

$147

$216

$352

$544

$996

$1,280 $1,500

Healthcare-5%

$92

$135

$220

$340

$623

$800

$938

Utilities-5%

$92

$135

$220

$340

$623

$800

$938

Transportation-4%

$74

$108

$176

$272

$498

$640

$750

Clothing-2%

$37

$54

$88

$136

$249

$320

$375

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Suggested Reading List The Bible, The King James Version Growing in Christian Morality, Ahlers, Allaire, Koch Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography And Other Writings They Call Me Coach, John Wooden The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey Jesus CEO, Laurie Beth Jones 20 Things I Want My Kids to Know (Life’s Greatest Lessons), Hal Urban The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, Hyrum W. Smith The Five Rituals of Wealth, Tod Barnhart When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, Harold Kushner A Mapmaker’s Dream, James Cowan Living The Simple Life, Elaine St. James The New Pritikin Program, Robert Pritikin The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz The Courage to Live Your Dreams, Les Brown Your Time and Your Life, Charles R. Hobbs As a Man Thinketh, James Allen The Story of Good and Evil, foG (ISSUU.com)

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SELF IMPROVEMENT

Time and circumstances are keeping us from becoming the people we were created to be. We all need a way to lter out the unimportant activities and to identify the important activities that will lead us to the path to our best future. Admiral Bidcoff once said, “We live our lives as if we were involved in a series of disasters rather than in an orderly process to achieve the natural results we desire.” Life mapping is the orderly process that leads us to achieve the natural results we desire and deserve. The reward for investing your time in the creation of your Life Map can be better than any other use of that time.

foG is a friend of God and his meat is to do the will of God.

U.S. $XX.XX