Practice to Consistently Produce

Every now and then you encounter someone who demonstrates
excellence on the job. It might be an exceptional waitress
who anticipates your every need. Or a manager who generates
both high performance and loyalty in his teams. It could be a
teacher with a knack for unlocking the desire to learn in each
student. Excellence, true excellence, is something we prize
but seldom see. It’s a joy to encounter someone who is truly
excellent at what they do. Why is that so rare? More
importantly, how can you become known as a man or woman who
consistently demonstrates excellence?

One comment that is heard time and again about those who demonstrate
excellence is, "He/she is a natural at it." They don’t seem to
struggle to be excellent; it just flows. That is always a sign of
motivation, and therein lies the first key: Motivation is required
for excellence.

Motivation is what we like to do naturally. It’s like being right
or left-handed. We don’t even think about it. We just write. The
same is true for people known for excellence. They have a group of
motivations that work in concert to help them perform at a higher
level. Like all motivations, these were inborn and are as much a
part of them as being blue-eyed or tall.

But there is a second key: Motivation can be developed. People who
demonstrate excellence have identified their motivations and worked
hard to develop them. They have added knowledge, skill, experience
and practice to consistently produce at the highest levels.

By the way, there is a flip side to these two keys, and it is
this: The best we can be with low motivation is adequate. No
matter how hard we work and desire it, in the long run we will
never be excellent at something without high levels of motivation
in that area. In other words, if we toil in areas where we have low
motivation, we resign ourselves to mediocrity.

Who wants to be mediocre? Who wants to be known as "adequate?"
Wouldn’t you rather have a shot at excellence? The first step to
unlocking your excellence is to know what you do well naturally.
What are your motivations?

Well...what are they?




I am blessed and I bless you.

Blessings are Blessings

Were it not for the technological advances made in global
communications, delivering this lesson to you in whatever
particular place in the world you happen to inhabit might be
difficult. Thanks to the world-wide web, the internet and email,
however, we now have high-speed access to a previously undreamed-of
world of connectivity and can now literally "reach out and touch"
people spread all across the planet. But as remarkable as this new
connection to the world is, it cannot hold a candle to the speed
and ease with which a blessing can reach out to touch and transform.

The more practiced we become with the art of blessing, the more
aware we are of the truth of our being and the Divine way in which
we are so fully connected to the world around us. We discover a
willingness, many of us for the first time, to listen to our soul
and follow its guidance, and with each blessing we send forth, the
world of which we are a part undergoes a subtle yet undeniable
change. It becomes brighter, smoother, softer and infinitely more
sweet.

Notice I described the change occuring in our world as "subtle".
The fact is that, though they can be, the changes wrought by our
blessings are rarely ostentatious, dramatic or filled with any
sense of the spiritually glamorous. As David Spangler writes,
"Real blessings in everyday life are more like peasants than
nobles, they move and mingle with the commonality of our daily
experiences, sometimes going unnoticed or unrecognized for what
they are."

Blessings are blessings in whatever form they take. Our job is not
to question whether one act of blessing is greater than another,
nor is it to judge ourselves as being more or less capable of
blessing than someone else. Our job is to bless in whatever
ordinary way feels good to us and to keep on blessing for the sheer
joy the act of blessing brings.

And when we do this, when we practice the art of blessing everyone
and everything in our lives in whatever sweet and simple fashion
feels best to us, then with a swiftness that technology, no matter
how advanced it might become, can never match, our ordinary
blessings connect us to the Divine and make it possible for us to
see our universe in a whole and extraordinary new way.

And in reality, whether its peasant-born or noble in its rank, a
blessing need do nothing else. It has done the job it was meant to
do the moment it changes the way we view the world.

Changing us, you see, is what blessing others is really all about.


Today's affirmation:

"In the every day and ordinary, blessings abound."

Today's quote:

"In approaching the art of blessing, it's important to understand
that we are really entering a territory that is different from the
one we navigate through most of our daily lives. We are shifting to
a way of looking at the world and at ourselves that is unusual in
our mainstream society. This is not a magical or esoteric
perspective. It's simply a way of understanding the ordinariness
of the sacred and the sacredness of the ordinary."



-- David Spangler