Last week’s “oops” reminds us that all of us could use a little coaching in some area of our life.

Learn how to make those New Year’s resolutions stick. You need to change your self-image.

It is important to examine your beliefs, and if they are serving you well or not.

You can move forward in life with the help of a life coach.

Change is inevitable. How we adapt to those changes is what is important.

Loyalty and trust are essential if your mastermind is to help bring success to everyone in the group.

I have a rule that I will not ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t do myself.

Examining our beliefs is not easy, but in today’s ever-changing world it is necessary.

We know that education is one of the most valuable things a person can have. So let’s start acting like it.

T.O. cannot win football games all by himself- although you would think he could, according to him.

Are you ready for what life may throw your way? Planning on how we are going to react to situations can make us be better at life.

We must accept change and adapt to it if we are to move forward in life.

When we stop growing and learning, we lose our personal strength. Keep growing, keep learning, and keep doing.

Life is an adventure. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of what can be yours. Success can be yours. Are you ready for it?

If you are afraid to fail you will never move forward in life. Failure is inevitable. How we deal with failure is what makes the difference.

Reading is something we should all do but don’t. Reading feeds your brain. So why don’t more of us do it?

Change gives us the opportunity to explore our lives in totally new ways. We live in a time that is ripe with opportunity.

Couldn’t it just be the weather? You won’t believe what some people are saying caused the hurricanes.

Knowing when to keep your mouth shut will help you at work and in your personal life.

It’s time for everyone to take a good look at character, values, and goals.

Who says you can’t reinvent yourself? It’s up to you to take the first step.

People who have to always be right have limited mental models. Don’t let yourself become one of them.

You can’t succeed if you don’t try, so don’t let fear paralyze you.

Donald Trump says people don’t change. We say, “If they can’t, what’s the point?”

Was the late Bob Denver’s crazed Beatnik successful? Step says “Yes.”

We can learn important success lessons from Charlie Brown’s “loserliness”

The visions of Katrina’s fury reminds us of the resilience of the human spirit

Consistency is one of the keys to successful relationships, and to success in life.

I am grateful for what I have and I am thankful for what I am about ready to receive.

At what point do you stop and give up the whole thing called life, what reason would you have to give up?

The most important of all of the rights that I would like to explore are the rights you have for yourself.

Imagination is usually considered the power of being able to form images that are not directly from experience. Imagination could be sensations that we may have. Where would these imaginations come from? How do we get them, and why do we get them? What can we do with these imaginations?

Experience teaches us that the truth changes. You may ask, how is that possible that the truth would change?

You know when someone may want to steal your dreams away- not because they don’t love you, but because they do love you. They say, “Please be realistic and reasonable about what you want”. They don’t want you to get hurt. They want to help you, but they also don’t want you to get too carried away, because if you dream something and it doesn’t come true you will be hurt.

Do you think that people don’t want you to change and grow, or do you think people want you to stay the same? Some people may even wish for your failure. Why would that be?

How do we know the time is right to make it happen for us?

What is it that you are choosing to have in your life? Are you choosing success? Or are you choosing failure? Are you choosing to be safe, or are you choosing to go for it? What are you choosing in your mind- fear and uncertainty, or a worthwhile risk to see what else you can accomplish? Are you choosing that you can succeed and that you can have victories in accomplishing some things that would be important to you?

This is your life, what do you want to do? Has it ever occurred to you to do what you want to do? Not that I am suggesting shirking responsibility. But who are we responsible to first, someone else or ourselves? Of course we are responsible to ourselves first, how can we not be? Charity begins at home. Take care of yourself before you take care of others.

Linda Martinez was 29 when she took her own life. Linda graduated from USC, and had a fabulous career going on. She was a musician that was actually getting work- and a lot of it.

My son asked me what I do for a living yesterday, and I told him I try to help other people be better at what they are doing, and so I talk to people. He said, “Daddy can I do that? I want to be in your business.”

I own a philosophy company. Just a little over a year ago I was a General Manager of a large automotive dealership. Today I talk to people about philosophy, rather than cars or the automotive business. Some people thought I was crazy to give up a good job and open a philosophy company, and for that matter not many people have heard of a philosophy company before. Some people still think I’m crazy, and I call them Dream Killers, but more on that later.

Think for a moment of your life and marriage as a blank canvas ready to be painted. What will determine whether it is a masterpiece or a horrible mess? Is it the color of the paint? Is it the condition of the canvas? Or is it the skill, inspiration and visualization of the artist? Yes, it’s the skill, inspiration and visualization that will determine the masterpiece.

I have written several articles about this, the Unworthy Syndrome, the Imposter Syndrome, being teased or losing at something at a young age that stays with you in life even though it was something most of us would have let go.

It is called prematurely, or involuntarily, retired. Let’s start with some facts from the Bureau of Labor. From 2001 through 2003, 55 to 64 year olds were 13 percent less likely to find new jobs than 25 to 54 year olds: 57 percent to almost 70 percent. Older workers are taking pay cuts to stay in the corporate world.

Here we are, going to Pakistan. No, no, no, not Newsweek going by the written word, but something even weirder: a foot race in Lahore, Pakistan.

We’re excited to announce our latest project as we bring Success Philosophy to the radio.

Blame - it seems that everyone is blaming everyone else. “Hey, it’s not my fault. Someone else is to blame here.”

Mentoring is when someone sees more potential in you than you see in yourself, and wants to help you reach it. I see more potential in everyone and hope you can benefit from Life Motivations in success, wealth, happiness, health and anything else that you would like, including consciousness.

How many of us tell lies? You know, the little white ones. “Oh Aunt Edna, you don’t look a day over 50. ” “Oh Aunt Bea, it looks like you lost some weight.” “Oh Uncle Harry, I love that tie you’re wearing, it makes you look so...” And on and on, but when do the little white lies become bigger. I don’t care, but if you tell the truth it is a better way to run your life I think. But who cares?

In the US, Australia and the UK there has been extensive research on what effects a successful marriage has on the entrepreneur, business owner and career person and this is what they discovered.

You have two types of changes in your life: the change that is external, in that it happens to you, and the choice that is internal in that you make it happen to yourself.

This week in Los Angeles, a thirteen year old boy who was playing pony league took an aluminum baseball bat and struck another 15 year old player in the leg, breaking it. He then struck him in the head, crushing the boy’s head and killing him.

What is it that makes a person want to believe what they believe and not entertain any new ideas?

How much does education cost? Well if you don’t spend it on yourself, it is going to cost you a lot. Not having an education is the most expensive thing you can do to yourself. You lose opportunities that other people will have because of an education.

One of the questions I get a lot is “Step, how do I improve my Customer Satisfaction? I want to, but it just doesn’t seem to get any better.”

We have self-doubt in our minds about who we are and how our lives have unfolded. But what becomes unhealthy is when we stay there, instead of going to the confidence part of our self-talk.

Do you have procedures, policies and documents in place to handle customer situations?

One of the gentlemen at this party went on to trash self-help authors. He didn’t know what I did for a living, and I listened politely as he explained his take on self-help authors. He said that they were just in it for themselves, and, “Who would be foolish enough to spend any money on that trash,” since they were only getting the authors rich.

Have you decided your service level?

I have been doing retreats for several years, and no two retreats are the same, because the people in the retreats are different people who all want different things.

In today’s world, it seems that quite a few people are looking for something that will make their lives complete. Perhaps at no time in the world have so many decided that the unexamined life, as Socrates mentioned, is so important as it is today.

Do you have the authority? The authority to do what? What is authority and customer satisfaction?

What is Success Philosophy going to do for me? That is a fair question, and one that I often get. It is going to turn you from ordinary to extraordinary.

Do you have the right tools to make sure that the customer is satisfied? If you don’t, we know that the customer is “put off.”

Success, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It has nothing to do with money...it has to do with getting what we think we deserve.

In the Four Dynamics we talk about are an internal energy and force that can help you out of your “hardwiring.” What is “hardwiring?” Author David Bach, in his book “Start Late, Finish First,” estimates that our brains are 90% “hardwired.”

If you have an unhappy employee, then you have a customer satisfaction issue.

Okay, let’s say you are not doing exactly what you want, but the money is good and you can take a vacation every once in a while. That’s all well and good, but what are you really dreaming of? Who do you really want to be?

Step one of customer satisfaction is “The customer is not always right.” Yes, you read this correctly, the customer is not always right. I know you have heard that "the customer is always right." Well, that is not true.

Doctors from the American Civil War and on through World Wars I and II discovered a phenomenon they called the Phantom Effect.

What is a self-image and how do we get it? We get our self-image from two sources.

On March 19th of 2004 the great State of California recognized us as a corporation doing business as Life Motivations. It is hard to believe that we will soon be one year old. And what are we doing? Helping people become better at their lives.

What is happiness, and how do we get it? Do we want happiness? Or do we for some reason feel good sometimes about being sad or unhappy. Why do we feel unhappy? Why do we do the things we do make us not happy?

As human spirits we have an inner need to grow, or our life starts to perish. Ever see someone whose only goal was to retire and then when they reach the goal of retirement they soon die?

We are all busy. We have to do this and have to do that. Someone is always waiting for something that needs to be done. Rush, rush, rush... And then the boss wants us to work overtime. “If you’re not in on Saturday, don’t show up for work on Monday.”

I would say that personal development is the process of getting better every day. I suppose the question is, “do people actually get better every day?”

Many of the people that go to these events where they can meet “Mister Hypnosis” are looking for some kind of breakthrough in their lives, be it height, new hair, charisma, improved eyesight, or eliminating or reducing cancer.

The Four Dynamics are very powerful, and being aware of them can create massive changes in our lives. Many people are not aware that they make choices and changes in their lives using these concepts all the time, whether or not they understand what they are. And it takes awareness of all these concepts to make a conscious difference in how we live life.

One of the Success Characteristics that we teach is a Pleasing Personality, which can also be defined as the ability to sell yourself. This is an important characteristic to have if you are going to have success.

What, you don’t think so? Do you think you are a loser? Well, anyone can be a loser, but only if they want be. Yep, that’s right. Only if you want to be.

Ever been in a relationship that doesn’t work out?  Boy, let me count the ways and the number. Nope, I can’t count high enough.

Well, we’re halfway through January. Have you already broken your New Years Resolutions? (Assuming you made any?)

This week, let’s talk about one of the Four Dynamics of Success: Choice and Change.

As part of our ongoing research into what motivates people - both for the positive and negative in their lives - we have been studying data on suicide among children five years old and young adults to 24...

All of us at Life Motivations hope you have had a happy and healthy holiday season. As we look toward the New Year, in between the resolutions and goal setting, it is also a good time to take stock of what else is important in life. By this I mean giving back to something you believe in.

I would say that just about everyone has heard something about the sub-conscious mind, what it is, and how it works. It is a very interesting piece of computing equipment that we all possess.

As we near the New Year some of us are going to be making resolutions. And some of us will wish we could make resolutions that we could keep.

Do you want to be a motivated employee? Or for the manager or executive, how much is a motivated employee worth to you?

Making deadlines and keeping your word are two things that go hand in hand. I read a story about Lou Tice at the Pacific Institute. He had a package that needed to go to Australia by a specific date, and he forgot to mail it. He got a $4000 plane ticket to take the package to Australia so he could keep his word.

Wisdom. Virtue. Integrity. Unethical.

Who is the best motivational speaker? I have an answer for you: ...

Have you ever seen the puzzle of 9 dots, and then someone asks you to connect them with 4 lines without lifting the pen from the paper?

What is leadership? In a nutshell, leadership is confidence and trust.

I can’t make this up: Lions and Christians back in the news. I know there is a lot of news in the world today, but I dug deep.  In the main section of the paper today is this story: “Lion attacks an Intruder in its Den at Taipei Zoo.”

My wife and I were in New York last week.  One of the things we made room for in our schedule was to go to Ground Zero.  This was an experience that I am sure we will never forget.

Values are tricky things.  What one person may think is a value another may not. There are a lot of religions, societies, groups, even individuals that may think that what one person thinks is right might be wrong.

You have to love this. From the front page of the LA Times Business section: “Regulators sue diet-pill vendors.” It seems the commercials that we have been seeing are not the truth.

I spent over a quarter century in the retail automobile industry. In the first half of this career I had some success, and even owned my own dealership, but I also had failure, and halfway through this career I lost everything and found myself broke.

My father became ill 6 or 7 years before he died of Alzheimer’s and cancer.  I first noticed the changes in him when I went home for the holidays one year.

I got a lot of mail about the article Fear, Love, Success and Ice Cream. I was talking about love and fear, and how hate was a product of our fear.

I love my new job, President of Life Motivations.  I am subject to a lot of criticism. In fact, my wife is my biggest critic. She called last week’s article, “Lying in the Corporate World, can we be Collaborative?” wacky.  Of course she thinks it is wacky that I gave up a perfectly good job to start Life Motivations.

Having run a big business, I have found myself in situations where someone might suggest that we don’t tell the whole truth.  I have always told them we will not lie.

Love and fear.  We love, and we fear (though perhaps you may think we should say love and hate). It seems that things we believe we hate, if we look closely at our hate, and share the truth with ourselves - we hate something because we fear it.

When talking about employee motivation, it’s important to remember that different sized companies have different needs.

When my 4-year-old son, Chance, doesn’t want to do something, or doesn’t like something he says, “I don’t love that.”  Chance also has a lot of energy, because he is 4, and gets to do a lot of things that he likes to do.  What if we all put that kind of energy to work for us with a tremendous amount of love?

I just got done speaking in front of a group yesterday, and one of the things I speak about is that the employees interacting among themselves is a greater force than that of management.  The employees make up their own culture, and that is more powerful than what a top executive can be to the work environment.

Imagination helps you to realize your goals through the visualization of what you want.  If you can dream it, you can be it.  If you can feel it, you can be it.  If you can hear it, you can be it.  This is your imagination at work, dreaming up what you want in your future.

A lot of people talk about goal setting.  It is very good for you for a number of reasons.  One, it let’s you track your life; it gives you a map of where you would like to be. Does goal setting answer all of our questions, and solve all of our problems?  No.

Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most positive people in the world. If you haven’t read his “Power of Positive Thinking,“ it is a must.  He had faith that was unshakable, along with a great attitude.  But the power of positive thinking is not in the “I am happy,” and the “Everything is going to be okay,” but in the ability to look at risk, and see that risk can be OK.

Lets see if these two things have something that ties them together, a connection to each other.

When I speak in front of people I often ask the question, “How many people want something to change in their life?”  I don’t ever remember when somebody didn’t want to change something in his or her life.