Practice makes Perfect

As the phrase goes "Practice makes Perfect" is truly what I am feeling this week.  When reading the book "Mastery" by George Leonard he emphasize to the road of mastery you must be willing to put the practice in to make yourself your self-master.

I ask myself often these days what do I want to be a master of?  I want whatever I am mastering to be something of worth.  To be the best yo-yo person is not what I say would help my eternal progression.  Then I realize I want to be the best disciple of Christ, husband, father, and friend to those that need it.  I have the list in order of priority.

I know many say the same thing and we cannot all be the best, but we can master ourselves to be the best person to whom it may concern.  My Savior knows me well enough that if I am doing my best He will accept that.  My wife, if she see I am total committed to this relationship, she will only say I am the best.  As for my children, I teach and love them as they should be then they will put me as the best.  As for a friend, I will be the friend they need me to be not what they want me to be.  There is fine line between the difference.

How am I going to achieve this.  It will be by practice.  Each day I have been given the same amount of time as anyone else.  I will put my effort where it really matters.  I will try to humble myself to realize I am not always right, and learn from those people to whom I want the relationship with.  Once I understand them I can see them as my Father in Heaven sees them.  Once I have completed this I become the master.

In the order I have put my priority, will be like domino affect on the next person.  If love my Savior as I have been commanded, my wife will see that.  My children see how much I love their mother, they will respect me.  My friends see what kind of person I am to my family and to my Savior they will respect me.

I figure when the home is safe, the rest of your life will be safe.  You can tackle anything that comes to you.  When there is strength in the home, no force can take it down.  However, if we wing ourselves from what is important then evil will creep in and destroy what is most precious.  Then your life will crumble and peace will not be with you.  You will no longer be the master, but a slave to the circumstances that occur.  This all comes from practicing what you dearly want.  Then perfection will come.

Journey that Never Ends

This week was monumental for me in my professional life.  I was officially made the COO of the company in my company.  It is nothing glamorous, but put me into a position that I need to step up my game.  When I came into the family business, I thought I was always going to be in sales.  I do love sales, it is my passion.  I feel that I am good at it, but now I have to look at production.  I am in the nursery (plants) business.  Our product does go all over the US and Canada.  It has been fun to know the customer and see how their business run.  Now being in production I have to look inward.  

I am excited though.  I like the managers we have.  They are very capable personal and have deep passion to see this company succeed.  It has been fun to talk to them about what they think the company should be like.  It is great to hear perspective within the company.  My years here have been expose to what people thought of us from the outside.  

Continuing from last post about mastering oneself.  The journey you take in life is never over until the day  you die.  You may be given curve balls and obstacles to sway you from what you had deemed to be the path we wanted to go down.  The most exciting thing about life is there is nothing certain.  It is our job to adapt to the changes and become something better, instead letting life control you.  

The Path to a Jedi

     When I think of Mastery, I think of Star Wars and the Jedi.  When Yoda was instructing young Luke Skywalker he told him to unlearn everything he has learned to clear his mind.  What good advice when it comes to mastering ourselves.    In order in our lives to better ourselves we must be ever vigilant in becoming better and removing the personal obstacles in our lives that enable us to become great.

     This week I learned about perseverance from James E. Faust.  When he said about persevering in the church and doing what Heavenly Father wants us to do, Heavenly Father will open doors to making things happen in our lives for our benefit.  As we are persevering we come to know our Lord and Savior better and gives us strength when times get harder.  James E. Faust also stated that when we you fall down get up.  The strong will not allow a fall or stumble get in the way to obtain the best prize in this life and the next life.

     I also enjoy this week’s exercise on who do we want our personal advisory board.  I have chosen mostly people that I have admired in my readings over the years.  The only person who made the list that is still alive is my wife, the rest are profound people in the history of the world.  Their legacy lived on because they made an impact in the lives of millions.  I would like to have those people on my board so when I leave this mortal world, that I have left a legacy.  I am not saying I want to have millions mourn my death, but I want people to know that I was good.

     To master ourselves is a lifelong journey and must be enjoyed also.  Take the failures and say to ourselves that we an education.  Life is too short to regret and too long to not live it.

Does Fear hold us back?

I believe fear is what causes the future to not be bright.  We look at ourselves and feel in inadequate for greatness.  If we plant ourselves in solid foundation of our self constitution .we can conquer our fears.

This week I was privilege to look deeper into myself and do a self evaluation.  It is not easy to be honest with myself.  I had to know what I really wanted.  Also see what I am also most fearful of.  We don't want to see what we are fearful because it shows us our weakness.  We are fearful because facing our weakness will mean work.  The work to make our weakness to be not weakness will requires diligence and discipline which is hard to do when the world is saying be yourselves and don't let anyone tell you what to do.

If we choose to conquer the weakness and pursue the diligence to be a disciple to our constitution then I feel our fears will dissipate.  Our passion will overshadow the demons of fear.  Our worse case fears will not be as bad as it seems because we have evaluated the exit strategy if our adventure does go south.

I feel my fears are mostly based on disapproval of those that I love most.  I am expressive person and I want people to like me, but if I choose some of things I want to do, then I feel I might lose the approval of those that I feel is closest to me.

When the time comes to meet our maker we ask ourselves what is the legacy I left behind?  Most of us do not want to regret.  My advice in that is don't let fear let you down a path of regret.  Babe Ruth stated, "Don't let the fear of striking out stop you from playing."  I feel that is good idea, let yourself strike out because you will learn.  Don't fear failure, but embrace when it comes.

I am teaching my child to not fear failure.  I believe she will grow more if she does.  Give more, play more, love more, trust more.  The list can go on, do not let your fear let you stop growing.