BEAT THE RAT RACE

IT'S A RAT RACE OUT THERE!
If your week has been anything like mine, you've been running pedal to the metal from one job to the next, one appointment to the next, one errand to the next. You've barely had time to breathe! At the end of the day as you finally flop down into your bed, your mind is still actively in the race, thinking about all the "To-Do Lists" you've got to get "To Done" tomorrow! It's exhausting! Listen, if you burn the candle at both ends you aren't half as bright as you think you are.

IS IT MAKING ANY DIFFERENCE?
The worst part is, without any down time to just pause, reflect, dream, vision cast, assess, your life may be closer to that image of the guy in the hamster wheel than you realize. You might be going 100MPH but you aren't making any progress in the things of life that REALLY matter!

STOP! TAKE A DAY OFF!
No, I'm serious! Really! Take a day off! Yes, a WHOLE DAY OFF! Don't do anything! Don't work from home! Don't catch up on housework, or errands! Just take a day off and recharge your batteries. STOP before you crash and burn!! Sometimes you have to take yourself out of the rat race before you become a rat! Give yourself a break!

GO GET SPIRITUAL/PHILOSOPHICAL
While you are resting, spend some time in meditation and/or prayer. Get alone with your thoughts. Don't think about your to do list tomorrow. Think further out than that! 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years into the future. Where do you want to be? Who do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? Who do you want to be doing it with? Let your imagination run wild and dream big!

YOUR STRESS WILL 

KEEP ON COMING
You will never get ahead of stress. It will keep on coming. Every day will present new challenges, trials, struggles. Working yourself to death 24 hours a day will not get rid of your stress! It will just guarantee that you will be less prepared for the stress that's already heading your way tomorrow. You were designed to sleep, every night. you were designed to take a Sabbath day, a down day, where you do nothing but commune with loved ones and your Creator.

NEVER GIVE UP!
Continue to be hopeful. Know in your mind and heart that you will get through this. Refuse to stress yourself out. Give yourself time to relax and refuel. Clear your head and pull yourself together so that you can come back and face life stronger, more determined and fired up. You are special and valuable and significant! Believe that! I believe in you!

SIMON AND GARFUNKEL SAY 

"GO FEEL GROOVY"

That's my Life Coaching Prescription for you today! GO FEEL GROOVY! Way back in 1966, Simon and Garfunkel recorded "The 59th Street Bridge Song" which is better known as "Feelin' Groovy!" I was only three years old at the time but I can remember growing up listening to the lyrics. In case it doesn't ring a bell for you, here they are.

You got to make the morning last.

Just kicking down the cobble stones.

Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Hello lamppost,

What cha knowing?

I've come to watch your flowers growing.

Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?

Doot-in' doo-doo,

Feelin' groovy.

Got no deeds to do,

No promises to keep.

I'm dappled and drowsy 

and ready to sleep.

Let the morning time drop 

all its petals on me.

Life, I love you,

All is groovy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll give everything I've got

to help you become

everything you want to be!

www.LifeCoachGregScott.com

Remember,

YOU ARE

The Great Adventure!

~~ Greg ~~

COMPARING

Only compare you ... to the old you!
There's always someone out there who is stronger, faster, thinner, prettier, more handsome, more popular, smarter, richer, bigger, more connected. If you fall into the trap of comparing yourself with others, no matter how awesome you are, you will often come away feeling like less than you really are. Don't fall into that trap. Don't try to be someone else. Just focus on being the best YOU that YOU can be! That's more than enough, because YOU ARE AWESOME! You are the Great Adventure and God believes in you, and SO DO I!

So how can we make you a better you today?
Have you written down a couple of major goals? Just a couple areas of your life you want to make some improvement in? If you haven't done that yet, that's the first step. Dreams that have not been written down, stay just dreams, something to fantasize about when you want to escape reality. Write them down though and they become goals, something to work toward and realize. Once you've got those goals, you've got to pursue them passionately and consistently!

Stay Hungry for your goals! 
People who are "HUNGRY" are willing to do the things today that others won't do in order to have the things tomorrow that others won't have. People who are hungry are relentless. People who are hungry are unstoppable. For people who are hungry - NO Excuse is acceptable! Visualize your goals! Say to yourself "It's not over till I SUCCEED! It's not over until I attain SIGNIFICANCE!" Be the best you that you can be!  I'm here to help you when you are ready!

I'll give everything I've got

to help you become

everything you want to be!

www.GreatAdventureCoaching.com

Remember,
YOU ARE

The Great Adventure!

~~ Greg ~~

CONFIDENCE

It’s time to believe in yourself! God gave you abilities, natural talents, intellect, personality and willpower! He says if you delight in Him He will give you the desires of your heart! What are the desires of your heart? Who do you want to become? What do you want to accomplish? Why do you doubt yourself and criticize yourself and talk yourself out of your dreams?

You have enough critics! You don't need one more, especially not yourself! You have the power to do more than you ever thought you could do. God has faith in you! I have faith in you! Have faith in yourself!

Stop letting your past define you! It doesn't have any real power or presence in the world. It exists only in your mind. Stop trying to go back to a place that doesn't exist! Stay rooted in your present. Don't worry about tomorrow, each day has enough to keep you engaged. Today, this day, matters! The present is where you will make your impact on the world. The present is where you can begin to change lives, starting with your own.

You've got to take care of you! You want to take care of other people but listen, you cannot give what you do not have! If you don't take care of you, you won't be around to take care of anyone else. There's a reason the airlines tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first before you try to help someone else.

While you are rooted in the present, keep your feet pointed toward the future! You redefine your future when you redesign your present. Take a fearless inventory of yourself every night! Look at your health, your career, your finances, your relationship, your self-esteem, etc. What's the balance sheet look like? What line items do you want to look differently? Do you realize that you have the power and authority to set that plan in motion?

Revisit your goals every morning and ask yourself what you are doing on a daily basis to bring those plans to fruition. Resolve to take at least one positive step in the right direction. Don't try to do everything at once! Just do something!

Are you on track for your big picture plans and goals? Or are you off course, chasing squirrels? You have to daily monitor your progress and make sure you course correct quickly. No one runs in a perfect straight line but your path to success and significance in life will be shortest and most direct by keeping your eyes firmly fixed on your primary goal.

Above all, be teachable! Be coachable! Figure out what you want to do and then find someone that has already done it and hire them to assist you. Hire them so you can save yourself time and costly mistakes.

There’s no secret to success but there IS a system to success! Once you learn and implement that system, you’re golden. I promise you that you have something special, something you can believe in. It's right inside you and we just need to bring it to the surface! Believe in yourself! You were designed and destined for significance!

I'll give everything I've got

to help you become

everything you want to be!

www.GreatAdventureCoaching.com

Remember,

YOU ARE

The Great Adventure!

~~ Greg ~~

WELLNESS WEDNESDAY: SELF-TALK

WELLNESS WEDNESDAY: SELF-TALK

Be careful of how you speak to yourself. Protect the wellness of your mind. If you don't closely monitor your self-talk, much of what you say to yourself amounts to negative, limiting beliefs that will hold you back in life. Unchecked, they actually can do far worse than that.

They can poison your attitude, drain your energy and weaken your spirit. You can end up being your own worst enemy, worst of all, an enemy you never see coming. Quit sucker punching yourself. Stop kicking yourself when you are down.

So raise your self awareness today. Be aware that, ungoverned, the negative novelist who lives inside your brain will magnify your fears, bury your faith and empower a spirit of hopelessness.

At Great Adventure Coaching we call that spirit The Inner Saboteur and he/she is YOU!! Kick that voice out of your head today before he/she steals any more of your life. Tell yourself how you expect yourself to be treated from now on and then follow through. I know it sounds a little crazy but believe me it works. You are talking to yourself all the time anyway. I'm just telling you to be more intentional about what you are saying.

Open up that incredible loving heart of yours and love on YOU today! You are worth it! Love yourself unconditionally, just like your Creator does. Treat yourself at least as well as the strangers you meet throughout the day. So polite to them, you would never dream of saying the horrible things you say to yourself. (If you do speak ugly to strangers we've got a different set of problems we need to work on.)

Celebrate the positives in your life right now. Oh, yes there are! The positives ARE TOO there! Look hard enough and you will find them! Shut off the negative already and accentuate the positive.

Stop worrying about a million what ifs and your ten thousand problems. Just focus on doing the next, right thing. And then do the next right thing. And then the next right thing. You matter! What you think matters! What you say matters! What you do matters! You are a world changer, put here to change the world for the better! The proof that your mission on earth is not complete yet is that you are still here.

So, listen ... Listen me now ... Listen ... Don't miss this!

ASPIRE! GO! DO! BE!

I believe in you. Remember, YOU ARE THE GREAT ADVENTURE!

I'll give everything I've got to help you become everything you want to be.

~ G ~

WAVE WIPEOUT

Have you experienced a setback recently? Sometimes life takes us out at the knees doesn't it? You feel like you are caught under a wave, tumbling and turning trying to surface and grab a breath. Maybe you've experienced a devastating loss, the death of a loved one, a job or financial loss or a lost relationship. Maybe you are going trough a health crisis of your own or caring for someone who is seriously ill, elderly or frail.

Often you feel that overwhelming stress and frustration. You may sometimes think of "giving up" even saying those words out loud to no one on particular. 

"I quit! I give up!"

I want you to know today that there are some specific things you can choose to do to lift your spirits, relieve your mind and remind you of what is still good and positive in your life, your real truth.

Do at least one thing every single day that will allow you to reconnect with yourself, who you really are and what you really want to experience in life. Make a promise to take better care of yourself. Make those brief sanity breaks a daily priority to just get still, draw on God's strength and get refocused.

Never forget that even in your darkest moments, you have something very special inside of you. 

Remember, YOU ARE THE GREAT ADVENTURE and I BELIEVE IN YOU!

I'll give everything I've got to help you become everything you want to be!

~ G ~

SUCCESSFUL PIG FLIGHT IN FOUR BASIC STEPS

I'll believe that when pigs fly! 

We've all heard it or said it ourselves. An idea that has been presented seems dubious at best, impossible at worst. We throw out the "fact" of impossible pig flight with a dismissive wave of the hand and move on to more likely, more logical options.

You know that change in your marriage, in your career, in your emotions, in your education, in your business, in your behavior that you would love to see happen? You know the one I'm talking about. The "impossible" one! The thing you have given up on? The thing you have tried to change a million different ways with no success? Your "grounded pig" of a problem?

What if I told you that it is possible for that idea, that change, that dream, that "pig" to fly after all? Would you respond with "I'll believe that when pigs fly?" That's fine, because the reality is:

With sufficient thrust, 

all pigs can fly just fine.

STEP #1: 

BELIEVE IT BEFORE YOU SEE IT

No, you didn't read that wrong. People tend to say it the other way around. "I'll believe it when I see it." That's why their pigs don't fly. If you want your "impossible dream" to get off the ground, you've got to believe it BEFORE you can see it. You've got to engage what I like to call your sanctified imagination. This is an ability given to you by God to picture what could be, to create and set apart something in your mind before it manifests in your physical world.

The history books are full of positive thinking visionaries who believed it before they saw it. It's why we have electricity, indoor plumbing, computers, automobiles, airplanes, etc. Think about that jumbo jet sitting out on the tarmac at the airport. If you traveled through time from the year 1700 and saw that giant metal behemoth would there be any logical reason for you to believe that thing could fly, yet alone at 600 miles per hour? 

"It doesn't matter what you've heard. 

Impossible is not a word. 

It's just a reason 

for someone not to try."

- Scott Davis

Believe it before you see it and then act accordingly!

STEP #2: 

ACT LIKE YOUR ACTIONS MATTER

Often, we SAY something is important to us. We CLAIM that what we want more than anything else in the world is to be self-employed, to have a great marriage, to have a better relationship with our kids, to go back to school, to have more financial freedom, etc. If asked, with complete sincerity, people will say "I want THAT (flying pig) more than anything."

The reality is, we let A LOT of other noise and junk cram in and crowd our priority bubble. There is a reason guys like Warren Buffet have no idea who got voted off the island last week. They are focused on what they really want in life. They act like their actions matter. 

Dr. K Anders Ericsson, a Psych Professor at Florida State University is recognized as one of the world's leading theoretical and experimental researchers on expertise. In one landmark study he found that accumulated time of deliberate practice is the critical difference in a professional musician's performance ability. He found that the best experts had logged 10,000 hours by age 20 while the least accomplished experts logged only 5,000 hours of practice. Serious amateur pianists logged 2,000 hours. 

Dr. Ericsson also found that this applies to many other arenas of life in addition to expertise in music. How much time have you invested in getting your pig off the ground? 

"We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, then, is not an act, 

but a habit." - Aristotle

Act like your actions matter and then overcome the obstacles.

STEP #3: 

EXPECT AND OUTSMART 

YOUR CRITICS

Hey, success isn't easy! If it was, everyone would have it and nothing riles up the disgruntled "have nots" like watching a former "have not" begin to experience success. It's always been much easier to drag someone down than it is to lift someone up. The old adage "misery loves company" became a truism ... well ... because it's true!

Have you ever gone on a diet or stopped smoking or started exercising and found that suddenly your friends and family who don't diet, don't exercise or don't want to stop smoking seem to suddenly be trying to talk you out of that decision? "Come on! Go have a cigarette with me! Quit tomorrow! Come on! Go have ice cream with me! You can get back on your diet tomorrow!"

It's not that they want you to fail. It's that you succeeding makes them face their own failures and that isn't a pleasant sensation when you aren't willing to change yourself. So rather than change themselves, if they can instead "help" you not "waste your time" by showing you that change is an impossible pig flight, then they can again feel better about their own choices. 

No matter what great idea you come up with in life you can be sure there will be someone close by to tell you what a horrible idea it is. Post a personal video on YouTube sometime if you don't believe me. The pre-teen troll universe is poised, ready and waiting to pounce with bullying speech like you've never imagined.

In 587 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the walls, city and temple of Jerusalem. One hundred forty-two years later, Nehemiah, returned to rebuild the walls. Despite constant intimidation, criticism and threats of violence, Nehemiah and his team accomplished this challenge in the "impossibly" short timespan of just 52 days! Over and over his critics tried to stop him, distract him, discourage him and even kill him. How did he keep the plan on course? He gave this answer to his critics :

"I am doing a great work 

and I cannot come down.
Why should the work stop 

while I leave it and 

come down to you?" 

- Nehemiah

STEP #4:

BUILD A PIG FLIGHT TEAM

You are only human. You have to sleep, eat and bathe (please) sometimes. You can't be about the pursuit of the dream 24-7. What if you had a team of people around you helping you pursue your dream and you helped them pursue theirs as well? 

Let's take it a step further. What if you surrounded yourself with a team of people whose dreams were similar to yours so that many of the steps, lessons, tasks and challenges overlapped? What if that synchronicity kicked in and allowed all of you to be more successful, quicker? 

The truth is, that happens every day all over the world! It's true of every great endeavor! It takes teamwork to make the dream work! No one makes it to the top of Mount Everest alone. No one makes it to the moon alone. No one makes it to the bottom of the ocean alone. Steve Jobs didn't run Apple alone. Disney didn't create the Magic Kingdom alone. Felix Baumgartner didn't skydive to earth from outer space alone! Michael Jordan, as amazing as he was, didn't win six NBA championships alone! All of these people had coaches, mentors and fellow team members with a shared vision, an idea about a preferred future reality they were steadfastly pursuing together. 

Who is your team? What positive people have you intentionally gathered around you? Do you have a coach? A mentor? Teammates? Partners? 

Make sure you choose these people wisely. Don't put a critic on your team. Don't put dead wood on your roster. Life is short. Don't waste time or energy dragging a weak team into the future. Help those who don't share your vision join a different vision they CAN support and instead find kindred spirits to join your on your shared pig flight journey. 

"It takes teamwork to make the dream work 

but a vision becomes a nightmare when 

the leader has a big dream 

and a bad team."

- John Maxwell

I look forward to your official pig launch announcement in the future!

I'll give everything I've got 

to help you become everything 

you want to be! 

Remember, 

YOU ARE the Great Adventure!

Greg

Job Loss Grief Recovery

(Suggestions for Managing Job-Loss Grief: Great job loss grieving suggestions from my friend Andy Robinson, Executive Career Coach with my thoughts in parentheses. - G)

Be open about what has happened to you. Don't be afraid to say, "I lost my job." You may be surprised at how many people you meet have had similar experiences.

(The stigma of having been fired by an employer, even if just an economic "downsizing" is overpowering. But in this economy it is far more common than you realize. Current studies show most people will lose at least one job at some point in their adult career. - G)

Become part of a support group. It can be especially helpful to talk to (and listen to) a group of people who are in your situation. Often just finding out that there are others with your same concerns and fears can be a great help in dealing with those feelings.

(Bottling it up and stuffing it down won't fix it or make it go away. It just turns your grief into a ticking time bomb that you will be unable to control when something sets it off. Take positive control of it now and don't let it control you. - G)

Process your emotions. Admit your anger, fear, and frustrations to your support group, your family, and your friends. When you allow yourself to do this you are taking the first step toward managing your emotions instead of letting them control you.

(Freud could be pretty weird with some of his theories but with this catharsis thing he really hit the nail on the head. You don't need to talk to everyone about what you are feeling but you do need to talk to someone! I don't care how tough or macho you might think you are, a good cry once in awhile is what every guy and gal needs. Get all that poison out and let some tears flow. It's okay. - G)

Affirm yourself. You may feel guilty - feeling like you are personally letting your family down even though you know your job loss had nothing to do with anything you did. Or you may have missed out on a job opportunity that would have kept you employed. 

(Even if you were fired for mistakes you did make, I promise you, no one is perfect. So forgive yourself. Treat yourself as kindly as you would treat your best friend if they were in your shoes. - G)

Once you resolve this guilt you can move on. 

(Some studies show an average of 5-8 years for job loss grief recovery - rivaling grief related to the death of a spouse - so be patient and don't try to rush the process. -G)

Renew and deepen relationships. Your marriage and family, as well as your friends, can be a source of strength that is stronger than you realized. Having someone you can lean on and rely on can be crucial in times of trouble. Also, there may be times when you need someone to "give you a shove" when you become too discouraged.

(Incidentally, a Life Coach is a great objective ally to enlist to help you healthily move through your grief and give you a positive shove when you get stuck. - G)

Maintaining or renewing spirituality is just as helpful as your relationships with other people. Your personal beliefs and your relationship with God can give you support even when other people are not available for support. Your spirituality can help you develop your "inner strength" to deal with hardships, and it can also help you find an "inner peace" that can be just as beneficial.

(Connect with God in the way that works best for you. If church isn't your thing, go spend some time in nature or wherever else you can sense God's presence. Listening to positive, spiritual music is a powerful coping and recovery strategy that works for many people too, me included. - G)

Keep your sense of humor. Laughter is as important to your health as physical exercise and a good diet. Just as it is important to exercise on a regular basis, it is important to maintain your sense of humor on a regular basis. If you don't already read the daily comics, that can be a good start. 

(Stand up comics, TV comedies, etc are great as well. Find a way to laugh, I mean really laugh, big belly laughs, every day! This proven endorphin production factory alone will make the long days of grief recovery more bearable. - G)

Also, learn to look for humor in everyday situations, especially things that happen to you. Learning to laugh at yourself is one of the best ways to have a healthy self-image. 

Complacency

COMPLACENCY

com·pla·cen·cy (noun) 

\kəm-ˈplā-sən(t)-sē\

: a feeling of being satisfied with how things

are and not wanting to try to make them better

Complacency is the enemy of success and significance! Do you ever find yourself feeling like you want something more out of life, or at least something different? Yet, day after day you wake up to more of the same? Why is that? 

Well, assuming you are not literally being held prisoner somewhere it is because you have not yet reached the point where you want "the different" so badly that you are willing to choose different behaviors. Life is a journey of endless possibilities! You are always free to choose a different future but it starts by making difficult decisions today.

The reality is, few of us are literal prisoners. We more often make ourselves FEEL LIKE prisoners because it is easier to live with a defeatist attitude and lack of initiative on our part if we can somehow convince ourselves that someone else is to blame for our unhappiness. We convince ourselves we are powerless and that let's us off the hook!

How many times has someone given up just one step short of their breakthrough to success? Every summit of every mountain ends with one last step. If you don't take that last step, every mountain climb is a failed attempt. It's the same in every area of life. Thomas Edison said "The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." Listen to me now! Listen! Don't miss this! You are more powerful than you have been led to believe!

Sir Isaac Newton told us that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Of course, he was referring to physics, physical motion and forces, but the statement also holds true for the fields of behavior and motivation. Many people I have helped over the years described themselves as feeling "stuck" or "trapped" and this was not inaccurate.

Sometimes we all need a "push" from someone other than ourselves to get things moving again. It's not that we don't want to change for the better, it's that we've been stuck in the same place for so long we're just not sure how to take the first step. We need someone to believe in us and our ability to change for the better! That's exactly what a Life Coach does and I would love the opportunity to do that for you.

You are still in 100% control of our relationship and it all starts with you asking me to help you figure out how you got stuck and then raising your awareness together for you to get your life moving the right direction again. I'm here to give you the push you need once you decide which direction you want to go!

If you want more info about Life Coaching and how it can change your life for the better let me know and I will inbox you a brief PDF file of FAQ's.

I'll give everything I've got to help you become everything you want to be!

~~ G

Light A Candle

"A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle."

- Thomas Jefferson

I think one of the big transitions that takes place when young men and women become middle-aged men and women is they (hopefully) begin to think less in terms of "success" and more in terms of "significance." You may wonder what the difference is. I know when I first had someone differentiate between the two I did. One definition is this:

Success is what we do for ourselves. Significance is what we do for others.

Often in our culture, people miss this. They focus on success, rather than significance, often to the detriment of others. Everything in our secular culture tells us this is the right answer. We are constantly told to look out for number one and to watch our backs. There is a fear that by doing something for others we will somehow automatically be allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of. There is a fear that if we support a "competitor" in any way we will somehow be shooting ourselves in the foot, we are just being a sucker. We often carry this mindset in to the church world as well by the way.

Certainly, it's true that there are some selfish and unscrupulous people in the world who will take your kindness as weakness and exploit your good deeds against you. However, it is my conviction that those people represent the minority in our world, though I have certainly encountered my fair share of them as I'm sure you have as well. Truthfully, I'd rather be taken advantage of by a few on rare occasion than cut myself off from everyone and pursue only what is best for myself.

My wife Annette and I watched an amazing movie tonight. I've used clips from it in messages before but I'd never watched the entire movie before. Now that I have, it has become one of my all time favorites. It contains so many powerful messages: success and significance, friendship and forgiveness, healing and supporting, courage and generosity, grace and mercy and so much more. It really is quite a powerful and astounding story; a profound parable. I can't get it out of my head as I sit and write and feel like I could write an entire book on the various life lessons contained in the story. The movie is "Akeelah and the Bee" and I highly recommend it! It's on Netflix if you want to watch it tonight.

I'll avoid any spoilers but there is an incredible moment of truth for the heroine Akeelah where she has to choose between simple success and significance. She unselfishly chooses significance and her decision creates a wave of amazing positive transitions in many other people. In short, she knows at her core that "a candle loses nothing when it lights another candle." Akeelah and the Bee is an incredible story of how decent people should treat one another decently and how the world can be transformed for the better when they do.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in a difficult position like Akeelah, when every survival instinct tells us to focus purely on ourselves and to pursue simple success at all costs and let "significance" be damned? After all, isn't it a dog eat dog world? Isn't it every man (or Akeelah) for themselves? Life's tough enough just taking care of me and mine, why should I care about you and yours too? Few people I know would ever voice that as their true feelings but the honest facts are that their decisions and interactions with others (or lack thereof) sometimes communicate that very sentiment.

What do we do when we find ourselves on the short end of someone else's decision to choose success over significance and who shuts us out in the cold in the process? Well, it's certainly easier to curse the darkness than to light a candle, but we know that's not the legacy our Creator would want us to leave. If you are a person of faith, as I am, then your goal is always to be a child of light, serving The Light who came into the world. The darkness didn't understand Him either and it couldn't overcome Him. Jesus came to spend His life not in success but in significance by continuing to share His light even with those who kept shoving Him to the darkness and He expects us to do the same.

When we've been shut out by others we are more aware than ever when it comes to the frailty of our single candle standing up against the darkness. We worry that sharing our light with others will leave less for us or may even end up putting our light out altogether and stranding us in the cold and in the dark. I love Jefferson's quote that logically offsets this fear. Yet that fear often overcomes logic in human beings. It tries to convince us to hold all our blessings close to us, refusing to share anything with others. The cruelest and saddest part of that self-serving decision is that we often end up shoving others toward the cold darkness in our attempts to promote and protect ourselves.We may feel successful by the world's standards but we will ultimately faith God's test of significance. When people of faith make that tragic decision all of heaven weeps.

I've been through many transitions in my life but as long as I can remember I can say that I have been much more motivated by significance than by pure success. One look at my career path and my checking account will erase any doubts you may have about that. :)

God has called Annette and I to give a lot away in our twenty-three years of marriage. Numerous times we've opened our homes to other people who were in tough spots and needed shelter. We were able to provide it so we did. We have no regrets about any of that and we can testify that our candle never went out by lighting the candles of others. I don't share that to toot my own horn. We've met many along the journey who are far more generous and altruistic than we are.

Recently, we've really come face-to-face with this success vs significance challenge again. Again, middle age has a way of doing that to us. We're on the short side of our earthly life and it's only natural that we begin to take stock in what we've accomplished. Have we made a difference? Is some part of the world a little better for us having been here? Have we made a mark? Will we leave a positive legacy? The way it is typically phrased when it comes out of my mouth: Did I matter? Did my life matter?

As a middle-ager, my transition to age fifty was much more profound than my transition to age forty. Not that forty was uneventful of course as we packed up our family and moved from North Carolina to Ohio to start a church in Gallipolis, Ohio. We landed in town on my 40th birthday. We hadn't sold the house in North Carolina yet and we ended up living in a one room apartment in a pole barn for six months before the house finally sold. This is an example of the generosity of others toward us and continues to be "pay it forward" inspiration for us to offer the same to others in our home. At the time, what we went through during my age forty transition seemed like the riskiest and greatest adventure we would ever go on.

Little did we know that ten years later, my age fifty transition would make that adventure look like novice stuff. Within the two weeks surrounding my fiftieth birthday, I had lost my job, been blown up in a gasoline fire and had begun the long, slow, steady slide toward bankruptcy and homelessness. Oh yeah, I also turned fifty.

Let me get really real with you for a moment and tell you that as a husband, there's not much else in this life that can make you feel like less of a man or more of a complete failure in life than all that. I thank God we had that practice run of challenging times in 2003 to prepare us for this current test. Bankrupt or not, homeless or not, we know from past experience that God is with us and even in the darkest times we will never be alone, the Light will still be there, right by our side.

Certainly, in the current stage of my life, no one could point to my present state and call me a success. There is little room for doubt that I am in a very profound failure recovery program right now. When we find ourselves in these types of positions, cut off from making a living and cut off from most of the relationships we used to count on in life, it's easy to become engulfed by those feelings of failure, abandonment and a profound feeling of jadedness.

However, at the end of the day, while I can absolutely affirm that I am not anywhere close to anything remotely resembling a "success" right now in life, I am still a man who oozes "significance" because even while walking in the current darkness, I am willingly and happily sharing the small light of my candle with every other darkness traveler I meet along the journey. I may be losing now, but I plan on winning again, if not in this life, certainly in the next. In the meantime, my current troubles are an opportunity for growth and learning and I plan on doing both to the best of my ability.

I will learn to be more significant and I will learn how to share my candle with as many people as I can as I lead them out of their times of darkness as well. As my friend John Maxwell says: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn." What about you? What kind of transition are you going through right now? I'd love to help you make it through and make sure you learn something valuable along the way.

2014 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER?

2014 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER?

I'm chatting with people all over the world today and asking them this question: "Do you want to make 2014 your best year ever?" It's always heartbreaking to me that some people actually answer that question with a no or they pause a really long time as they are just not sure how they feel about life.

I saw that lack of hope, that discouragement, that apathy in the eyes of hundreds of people over the years as a pastor and now, as a life coach, I continue to see it. So many people just feel stuck, trapped, paralyzed and unable change their life for the better.

So they just keep taking whatever comes their way instead if choosing what to receive and what to refuse in life. They don't realize they have the power to decide. Sure they want more out of life but they are struggling to find the passion and energy and time to make the necessary changes. The tyranny of the oughts and the shoulds is keeping them stuck and frustrated. Their limiting beliefs glue them where they are and hold them back from becoming and achieving all that God designed them to do and be.

Not me. Barriers were meant to be broken through and the status quo for me is a status no! In 2014 I am going to continue to DREAM, REACH, DO, BE! I'm going on an adventure! Do you want to come along?

I will give everything I've got to help you become everything you want to be!

Remember, 

YOU ARE THE GREAT ADVENTURE!

I KNOW YOU MAKE BEAUTY FROM THESE ASHES

I've been posting and writing a lot about "The Phoenix" my second book that I am currently writing. I've been talking, thinking and praying all week about rising from the ashes of adversity in life, both literally and figuratively in my case. :)

I've lost a lot in the last few months, job, friends, security, etc. It's an exciting time because I feel like God is calling me forward but its always pretty stressful. Especially the getting fired and then REALLY getting FIRED parts! I've still got the "beautiful scars" of my miracle on my hands and face to remind me daily of God's goodness. He is The God of Second Chances.

Anyway, I had just finished creating a phoenix graphic and my blog post and was driving when I suddenly felt one of those Holy Spirit nudges to turn on the radio. It's usually tuned to KLOVE and a scant two seconds after I turned it on, this song by The Afters called "Broken Hallelujah" started playing. I am sure I have probably heard this song before, probably several times, but I have evidently never really listened to the lyrics before.

So, as the first verse kicked in, I both laughed and cried at the goodness, provision and encouragement of God in making sure I was listening to this song, in it's entirety today at that particular moment in time as I was spending $300 on emergency treatment of my dog Lilly as well. Just to pile it on, you know. :) Suffice to say 2013 has been a pretty tough year for me and my household and my current headaches and perpetual dizziness are currently the latest challenge kind of getting the better of me today.

I identified with MOST of the lyrics of the song. One phrase in the early part of the first verse, just three phrases in, does not fit where I am and I was struck by just how thankful I am for that truth. The author, speaking of God, says: "And I wonder where You are" - I have certainly had those crises of faith moments in my past but thank God, I have no doubts or worries about where God is in my life right now. That's the line that made me laugh and cry the first time during the song. I said out loud "Oh, I know right where you are Lord! You are underneath me, holding on tight and keeping me standing. You are all that's keeping me standing, so I know You are here. I am VERY aware of You! Thank You."

Then, much of the rest of the song did speak to me, so I grabbed it on iTunes as soon as I could and I have listened and sang along many times today in a day of private worship and renewal. I'm still very sick, still feeling very isolated and abandoned by most of the people I knew in this world, still facing a very uncertain future of course, but also still not worried because I know right where He is and I know He will make beauty from all the ashes of my life. That's what He always does. I felt led to share the lyric video for the song from Youtube with my Blogging World this early morning/late night. Hope it connects with someone else like it did me today and that it is just what you needed to hear today too. God bless you. Remember, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life! YOU ARE The Great Adventure and He WILL make beauty from your ashes too if you let Him.

Here's the link - http://youtu.be/Fo3DudOzV4k

I'll give everything I've got to help you become everything you want to be!

Greg
www.GreatAdventureCoaching.com

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

What is your PASSION in life? What makes you tick? What turns you on? What gets you out of bed every morning to face a new day? Would you describe your life as a GREAT ADVENTURE? I'll be honest with you, my life is a GREAT ADVENTURE! I am living every single day to the fullest and I am LOVING showing others how to do the same.

My calling and PASSION in life is this: "I want to MAKE A DIFFERENCE, with other people who want to make a difference, doing something together that makes a difference!" I want to EXPERIENCE more than simple SUCCESS in life! I want to achieve SIGNIFICANCE! I want my life to count. I want to leave a LEGACY! I want to LEAVE MY MARK! I want some piece of the world to be made a little BETTER because I was here!

Some of you out there reading this, you know EXACTLY what I am talking about! Right now, I am speaking directly to your HEART! In fact, your heart is beating right out of your chest! You feel a little light-headed! The POSSIBILITIES are surging up inside of you! You have been thinking about this very thing I'm talking about more and more lately! You are thinking "How does he know? How could he possibly know that's where I'm at in my thinking right now?" I'll go a step further... You have been thinking, "Is this all there is to life? Isn't there supposed to be MORE? I want more! Is it okay to want MORE?" YES! Let me make that a massive YES! It's okay to want more! You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! There is MORE TO LIFE than just marking time, collecting a paycheck, paying off the bills and living for the weekend! Your LIFE is meant for SIGNIFICANCE!

Listen, you are FAR MORE POWERFUL than the world system has led you to believe! Don't miss this! You are a CHILD OF GOD! You are a kid of the King, a prince or princess! You were created for GREATNESS, crafted for SIGNIFICANCE and designed for PURPOSE, joy and FULFILLMENT! If that's not the life you are living, listen to me now, YOU ARE MISSING OUT! You are LOSING TIME! Life is passing you by! Don't let that happen! Please don't let that happen!

YOU are a person of INFINITE WORTH, with a God-given DREAM inside of you that you are meant to FULFILL!  NOW is YOUR TIME! Right NOW, you are finally ready to begin to CREATE your life deliberately and you are ready to BELIEVE that you truly are fearfully and WONDERFULLY MADE! You are ready to EXPERIENCE firsthand the POWER that God placed inside of you to CREATE THE LIFE you want and to IMPACT your world in the POWERFUL AND POSITIVE way you have always DREAMED! Don't let your inner voice of limiting beliefs, the self-sabateur, talk you out of taking POSITIVE ACTION today.

You are SMART! You know as well as I do, if you keep doing what you've always done you will keep getting what you've always got! If you procrastinate and say "Oh, there's time to DREAM MY DREAM later..." you will feel like you only blinked for a second and yet somehow find that another decade has passed you by ... again ... and you are in the same place, the same rut, doing the same things with the same results. Unfulfilled, without JOY, without PURPOSE, without DIRECTION.

Aren't you ready to finally, really, LIVE LIFE to the fullest? You just need someone to COACH you on your JOURNEY! I've got 25 years of EXPERIENCE doing exactly that and I would love to be YOUR LIFE COACH! Armed with additional TRAINING and CERTIFICATION from JOHN MAXWELL, I have seen my coaching abilities and resources grow exponentially over the past year and now I am even more passionately pouring my life into everyone I can!

Just comment below on this blog or inbox me on Facebook or send me an email at GreatAdventureCoaching@Gmail.com and let's DISCOVER TOGETHER how you can EXPERIENCE all that you WANT and DESERVE in life! As your LIFE COACH, I know TOGETHER we will figure it out and help you MAKE PROGRESS, find JOY, find PURPOSE!


Not sure what life coaching is or how it works? Just check out www.LifeCoachGregScott.com to learn more and send me an inbox or email and I'll email you a PDF brochure I created that spells it all out in detail.

Let me say right away that Life Coaching is NOT THERAPY! Life Coaching is NOT COUNSELING! LIFE COACHING is a completely unique relationship that focuses on your present and even more specifically on your FUTURE! Life Coaching puts you in the driver seat. You set the agenda and my role to is draw your best life performance out of the inherent skills, experience, personality, character and INTUITION you already possess.



So, tonight, I am here in my home office, and in addition to this blog, I'm also working on this week's Great Adventure Coaching E-Newsletter. Our next installment comes out this Wednesday morning. I hope you are subscribed to this weekly one page e-mail E-zine! Every week contains MOTIVATIONAL and INSPIRATIONAL information on specifically taking the FIRST STEPS toward ACCOMPLISHING YOUR DREAMS IN LIFE! Are you RECEIVING it yet?

Are you able to describe your LIFE JOURNEY as a GREAT ADVENTURE of DISCOVERY and PURPOSE and JOY? Would you like to? Have you ever thought about tapping into the POWERFUL BENEFITS of a life COACHING RELATIONSHIP? Connecting with a Life Coach of my own is one of the GREATEST and WISEST decisions I have ever made in my life and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it for everyone! It doesn't have to be me of course, but I hope you will FIND A LIFE COACH SOON!  If you decide to entrust me with the privilege of that role for you, my PROMISE to you is this: As your LIFE COACH, I will do everything I can, to HELP YOU become EVERYTHING you want to be and ACCOMPLISH everything you want to ACHIEVE in LIFE! We will make sure you experience more than SUCCESS! You will experience SIGNIFICANCE!

"Once you've tasted significance, you will never again be satisfied with success." - John Maxwell

On The Great Adventure With You! Let's Make a Difference!

Greg

ALLOW YOURSELF TO DREAM!

Allow Yourself To Dream. One of the most common issues with the adults I meet is that they don’t usually know what they actually want. They have no clue what they’re passionate about because they no longer take the time to indulge their imagination and dreams. Somewhere along the way, they began to associate dreams and imagination with being childish and to be a grown up meant to just accept what life has handed you, buckle down, suck it up and get through life. Life becomes something they endure instead of something they lap up and enjoy!

Of course, let's face it, life is hard! Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. The truth is, it is hard to dig deep and dream with passion in search of true joy and fulfillment while being dragged down by all the daily demands and social expectations in our lives. I believe most people have had dreams at some point in their lives. Then they either made a conscious decision to give up on them or the stresses of daily living caught them by surprise and killed their dreams. 

In the musical Les Miserables, Fantine sings the famous song “I Dreamed a Dream” and beautifully and painfully captures the emotion of when our dreams die within us because of the pressures and stresses of life. She sings:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by. When hope was high and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
...

She concludes her song with these words:

I had a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I’m living.


So different now from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed. 

I'm willing to bet you can relate to that experience at least once or twice in your life too. Maybe you other sci-fi geeks like me can relate to the scene in the movie The Matrix. Morpheus is the captain of his ship, The Nebuchadnezzar. When the ship is destroyed he quotes King Nebuchadnezzar from Daniel 2. “I have dreamed a dream... And now that dream is gone from me."  

I can certainly relate to this common adult reaction of giving up on our dreams, accepting the status quo, and just existing through life. I had a million and one excuses for not thinking about what I really wanted to do and be in life, what my God-given passions and desires are and so for years I just went through the motions of what was expected of me. I kept thinking that I don’t really know what I want so how can I pursue it, how can I run the race marked out for me like the author of Hebrews challenges me to do? I protested, "I don't know what my race is! I don't have a dream anymore. Life has killed the dream I dreamed." But you know, that's not true at all. That’s simply not true! In reality we all have desires and ambitions, passions and dreams and the only one who can truly kill your dream is you. 

Don’t think for a second that you don’t have any desires, any dreams, any passion to experience joy and growth in your life. Have you heard of a child who couldn’t imagine or didn’t know what she wanted for Christmas? Every minute of every day is Christmas for all of us. All we have to do is know what to ask for. You don't know what you want or how to figure it out? Try this. 


To get going, just start. Start brainstorming. Throw out anything that connects even a little bit and see what sticks. Nothing is too wacky, too extreme, too off limits for this brainstorming time. Not even the sky is the limit. What COULD BE in life? What would you do if you KNEW you could not fail? Allow yourself to explore and change direction if need be. You may not nail it on your first attempt at this. Brainstorm a big list over several days. Then go back and review. Narrow down the list. Then start filling in the details of a couple of top contenders. 

What floats your boat? What turns you on? Sunsets, mountains, dolphins, a beautiful girl, a rainstorm, true love, someone who sacrifices for another. Being a lawyer, being a teacher, being a cop? Singing, dancing, painting, speaking? Caring for others, medicine, mechanics, technology? The list is endless and different things appeal to each of us. 

Really pay attention to, think about the books you choose to read, TV and movies you choose to watch, the music you listen to, the magazines you subscribe to, the websites you visit, your collections, hobbies and anything else that comes to mind.   

I have always had a keen interest in helping others discover their passion in life, seeing the look of exhileration and joy come across someone’s face when they finally have their AHA moment! Long before I became a pastor, or a coach, teacher and speaker, for as long as I can remember, I read everything I could get my hands on about psychology, self-improvement, self-help, leadership, human potential, psychology. 

In retrospect, my passion was always there, early on, and it kept popping up in all the things that interested me and what I was attracted to. Only you know what inspires you, and your dreams can only come from inside of you! Slow down once in awhile, and let your mind go. What is it you really want out of life? Who do you really want to become? What do you want to accomplish? Allow yourself to dream! 

Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs

We all have thoughts and opinions about our abilities, going on inside our head constantly. Often our self-limiting, self-talk tells us what we can’t do, why we can’t do it, and we focus on the worst case scenario if we tried. We call these thoughts “limiting beliefs” because they actually do limit your progress in life!

 

They literally stop you from moving forward! 

They PUT OUT YOUR LIGHT! 

The beliefs you hold to be true make up the fabric of your experience. The stronger those beliefs, the more they seem unshakeable, and the more you will find evidence to support them.What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of our beliefs about the world are not really true “out there.” They are only true because we’ve decided they are, albeit we likely haven’t done so consciously.

Beliefs are formed through repeated thoughts, and the only reason they hold any weight is because you’ve decided or agreed that they are true. So, we sometimes find ourselves paralyzed and frustrated! Your life is like a garden and these negative beliefs are like weeds. If you allow it, they will take over and destroy your life. So begin weeding them out of your mind today and make room for joy to take root and grow.

Limiting Beliefs are the thoughts we have about ourselves that are very often based on no particular fact. They are built up over time from what we are told during childhood, schooling and adult life. We often inherit limiting beliefs from family, friends, teachers, the media, our culture and our peers. Your limiting beliefs can infect you with low confidence and insecurities and often become huge obstacles to achieving what you actually can achieve.

Through embracing and activating what I call your “God-Given Force Of Will,” combined with wise guidance, feedback and unconditional positive regard from your Life Coach, in time you can overcome all of your limiting beliefs. You can change your thoughts into more positive ones that will enable you to move forward and overcome any and all obstacles in your way to becoming the successful and joyful person you want to be. You can attract the positive things into your life that you want to experience by focusing on them and conquering your limiting beliefs.