Picture a mason jar. If I fill it to the brim with rocks would you say it was full? Most people would say yes. Then I pour pebbles that slide in between the rocks. Is the jar full? Then I pour in sand and the sand fills in even more of the supposedly used space. Imagine your big dreams; the things that are attached to your purpose. Those things are your rocks. Your pebbles are the things in your life that are also significantly important but not the end all of everything like your rocks. Lastly is the sand. Things that need to get done, but might not hold the highest value in your heart. These are things like running errands. Most people fill up their jar with the sand first. Then they try to shove in some pebbles. Lastly, are the rocks that we are trying to wedge into somewhere where it feels like there is no room? How about we switch this pattern? Organize your life like in the prior example; rocks, pebbles and then sand. Do you ever feel like your days are consumed by errands? That you run around day after day accomplishing a ton of tasks but not getting any closer to your dreams and goals? Set aside time every day to focus on the rocks in your life. Then put in your pebbles. Lastly focus on your sand. This will switch your focus and change your productivity overall. Feeling attached to your purpose, and taking steps towards your dreams daily can create alignment between your conscious, your subconscious and the infinite.

Brian Klemmer used to say, "Be a fanatic about giving away the thing you want most," which invites us to shift from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. Whether it's love, recognition, or time, the more we give these things to others, the more we attract them into our own lives. When we focus on pouring out what we desire into the world—offering support, appreciation, and care—we create a cycle where our generosity returns to us in surprising and meaningful ways. Become a giving maniac. Be on a mission to give first, even when you don't see how it will come back to you. This week, as you go to work, consciously decide how to give to the receptionist, your boss, someone out in the field, or someone in another department. Try giving simply because you have decided to be a giver and see what happens. The reasons for giving are many, and it’s plain FUN to do so. Think about the last time you gave and how it felt—it's not only enjoyable, but also fulfilling. Giving has practical benefits too. Sometimes what you give comes back from that person, but other times it returns from another source entirely. Plus, giving builds loyalty in the relationships you have. However, we often hold back from giving first due to three factors: our pride, which says someone doesn’t really deserve it; our viewpoint of scarcity, which suggests there isn't enough to go around; and our self-centered perspective. What do you want more of? Start giving what you have little of, and you'll discover that there's always more to give and create. Embracing this principle of generosity empowers us to steward what is currently in our hands, increasing it in ways that transform not only our lives but also the communities and teams we influence, creating a ripple effect of abundance and growth.

I believe that Napoleon Hill remains one of the most influential thought leaders of all time. Among his most impactful statements is, “Anything the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” All of us have the ability to conceive things, and we may even believe they are possible for someone else. Still, they do not truly become within the realm of possibility for us until we can see ourselves achieving them. Whether it’s overcoming a great life challenge or reaching a lofty goal, the quickest way to believe something is in the realm of possibility is to become aware of someone else’s success. Almost 35 years ago, the video game Tetris was created. It became one of the most popular games around the world. With millions of people playing it, no one had ever beaten or maxed out playing the game until last year when a 13-year-old boy did it. Within a few days, two other people matched the same feat. Since the beginning of time, foot races have been among the most popular competitions worldwide. The mile run became an event closely followed by track and field fans everywhere. It was considered a fact that no one would ever break the four-minute mile until Roger Bannister did it in 1954. Less than two months later, it happened again. Throughout the ensuing decades, a sub-four-minute mile became the standard for elite runners. I have often repeated in my speeches, books, and these weekly columns that you should never take advice from anyone who doesn’t have what you want or has not been where you want to go. Mentors are important, but you must get the right one. Choosing a mentor involves finding an individual whose track you can follow all the way to your goal. Support groups can play a vital part in our personal and professional lives. Whether it’s a group that meets to face the common challenge of the loss of a loved one or dealing with a disability, or whether it’s a success-oriented group that meets to offer mutual support as you seek your destiny, being in constant contact with someone who has been through what you’re going through or who has achieved what you want in your life is priceless. Idle dreams become distinct possibilities when someone makes them reality. When you and I connect with that person, the dream can become a reality for us. As you go through your day today, find someone who has been there and follow the leader. Today's the day!

Have you ever had a moment where something happened, and you reacted sharply? Have you ever had a circumstance that started out slightly irritating and before you knew it you were fuming? I believe what fuels this fire is a cycle I like to call the “Justification Spiral.”  Let me use an example. Say your manager requests that you turn in a project by a certain date. At first, you feel a time crunch. The date is inconvenient for you, but you think you can squeeze the project in. As the deadline gets closer you begin a downward spiral within your own self-talk. At first, the talk is fairly innocent and the spiral not very deep. “If I had been asked to give my own deadline, I could have scheduled this better.” As the deadline gets closer, and you are feeling more pressure, the spiral goes deeper. “They must not see how much I’m doing. I don’t even think they appreciate me.” This spiral continues until finally, when the project is due, whether or not you complete it on time, you have created a space for yourself to feel unvalued and unappreciated through this justification spiral.   The justification spiral happens when you create one story, or do one thing, that feels out of alignment with who you know you truly are. You know you are a capable talented person, and could complete the project within the given timeline, whether or not it is inconvenient. Instead of owning your responsibility, or your choices, you attempt to shift the “blame” to someone or something else. In doing so you begin to create an elaborate story to justify why you were right about whatever you were initially feeling. Unfortunately, instead of this making you feel better, you end up feeling worse. This kind of self-talk could lead to you disliking a job you used to love, being resentful of your family, or so many other prices you really don’t want to pay.  What if you broke the cycle? What if you owned your part? What if you had chosen to have an open, honest, responsible conversation with your manager? What if you made a request? What if you just plain kept your word, and did what you said you would do?  Empower yourself today to break the cycle and stop the spiral!

A major key to transforming belief systems comes from emotional experiences, which we strive to provide at Klemmer seminars. But another way to change belief systems, as we discussed in our last newsletter, is accomplished through the persistent reading of books and listening to tapes. Affirmations, the daily repetition of a positive belief you want to become true for yourself, is another way to increase personal growth. Like reading books and listening to tapes, one downside is that affirmations don't carry much emotion. As a result, they take a tremendous amount of repetition – sometimes months and months. Unless a person is aware that this is part of the process, they may become discouraged, lose interest and give up. But affirmations do work, as I detail in the series The Pursuit & Practice of Personal Mastery . Presently, I have several affirmations. One is that I weigh 171 pounds and have a 36-inch waist. When I'm not traveling, I work out on a bike almost every day. While doing so, for five minutes I repeat that I weigh 171 pounds and have a 36-inch waist. For the next five minutes I repeat that I eat healthy and exercise at least four times a week. Over time – and it does take a lot of time – these beliefs become part of my subconscious, and then I begin to see changes. For instance, I have been able to stay on a powdered drink meal replacement for one of my meals. And then recently, Roma and I visited our neighbors across the street. We were going to watch a video together, but first the man offered me an alcoholic drink. In the past I would have accepted it. He then offered me a biscotti and I passed on that. What gave me the fortitude to stay on the meal replacement shake and not accept food and drinks that would have made me gain weight? I believe the above-mentioned affirmations helped to clarify and intensify my intent. Affirmations can be a valuable tool to reshape your belief systems. As you make them a part of your life, just be aware that they require a long-term commitment. Knowing this helps you to have patience and persistence to stay on course until you see the results.

At Klemmer, we believe that personal growth and leadership aren't about being perfect—they’re about being willing to make mistakes and learning from them. Many people hesitate to take risks because they fear failure, but the truth is, growth happens when we step out of our comfort zone and try something new. Are You Willing to Make a Mistake?   The willingness to make mistakes is a key element of success. If you wait for the perfect moment or feel like you need to know everything before starting, you might miss valuable opportunities. Mistakes teach us lessons that success alone cannot. They highlight areas for improvement, foster resilience, and build character. So, are you willing to embrace the possibility of making a mistake? Are you willing to look at mistakes as stepping stones toward achieving your goals? How Do You Respond to Making a Mistake? Mistakes are inevitable, but how we respond to them defines our leadership potential. Do you view mistakes as failures, or do you see them as opportunities for growth? The most effective leaders respond by: 1. Taking Ownership: Instead of placing blame, great leaders acknowledge their mistakes and take responsibility. This builds trust with others and accelerates personal growth. 2. Learning Quickly: Every mistake contains a lesson. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? How can I improve for next time? Leaders who are quick to learn become more adaptable and creative. 3. Moving Forward: Dwelling on mistakes only holds us back. The best response is to take what you've learned and move forward with greater clarity and determination. At Klemmer, we challenge you to embrace your mistakes and use them as fuel for your journey. Making a mistake isn't the end—it's part of the process of becoming a stronger, more effective leader. Are you willing to take the leap? Let us know: How do you handle mistakes? What have you learned from your past experiences? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

When considering the third of the 3Rs, revenge, there's often a short circuit that takes place in our minds. Suppose someone asked you if you ever took revenge on others. Now, if you're like most people, you would think that you don't take revenge. Your underlying thinking might be that if you did, it would mean that you're a bad person. In order to maintain being a good person, you must think of examples of revenge that you would never do. One of the ways to do this is by thinking that revenge is doing something extreme to someone else, such as inciting violence. If you don't participate in violence, then you don't exact revenge — and therefore you are a good person. This is often how our brains work regarding revenge! So, in order to discuss revenge, we must define it.  Revenge is any attempt to settle the score with someone.  For example, perhaps an employee gave their viewpoint to a coworker, but the coworker didn't respond. As a result, the employee doesn't feel heard. The employee might then make a snide comment, one that puts down the coworker. That's revenge. Hidden inside most of our minds is a little scorecard, or bank account, for each person in our lives. For example, a woman must ask her husband several times before he will do things for her. Sometimes, no matter how often she asks, he doesn't do them at all. Then she starts to plot how to get back at him, how to settle the score. That's revenge. The revenge can take several forms. She can conveniently not be available to cook dinner or not be in the mood. She can turn her back on him and migrate to another part of the house so that he can't communicate with her. What is the solution for this woman? To recognize that she is in the revenge stage of the 3R's and move into giving, fair-fighting, or open and honest communication. Revenge, or settling the score, is destructive to all parties involved, including the one who carries out the revenge. Recognizing this attitude doesn't mean we're bad. Like resentment and resistance,  having the courage to recognize revenge and deal with it through giving, fair-fighting, or open and honest communication brings release, energy and increased creativity.  For more on  revenge  and how to avoid being controlled by it, see pages 47-56 of Brian's book, If How-To's Were Enough We Would All Be Skinny, Rich & Happy. How have you caught yourself in revenge lately and what did you do about it?

There is not one simple overriding key to success. Instead, there are a number of keys that make success possible. However, one of the most significant concepts among the keys to success is that of delayed gratification. Olympian Peter Vidmar said, “Don’t sacrifice what you want most for what you want now.” Few things in life that are worthwhile come easily or are attained quickly.   I’ve long believed that there’s no shortcut to anywhere worth going. One of the most significant indicators of future success came to light through research done on preschool children that became known as The Marshmallow Test . In this research, a preschool - aged child was taken into a small room and told to sit at a table. On the table in front of them was one marshmallow. The only instructions given to the child was that they could eat the marshmallow now, or if they waited five minutes ,  the researcher would come back and give them a second marshmallow. That simple test proved to be an amazingly accurate indicator of how children would succeed throughout their education and career.   Many of our ancestors grew up in an agrarian society. They lived on farms and daily observed the cycle of planting and harvesting. Farmers worked all year and basically had one payday after they harvested their crops. People who are willing to plow, plant, fertilize ,  and cultivate their fields in hopes of a good crop later in the year, understand delayed gratification.   Higher education offers many lessons in delayed gratification. Obviously, students are studying today putting in effort and energy that will pay off years down the road in the form of a degree. College students are often faced with the dilemma of enjoying a night out with friends now or studying for a test that will potentially result in a good grade later. Success in life comes when we can strike a balance between smelling the rose today and planting roses that will be enjoyed in the future.   The recipe for failure is quite simply short - term ,  bad decisions repeated regularly. If you eat poorly today and neglect to exercise, it will have little ,  if any ,  effect on your long - term health. However, if you make it a regular, ongoing habit, it can literally kill you. The difficulty arises that if you eat well and exercise today, you won’t experience positive results as quickly as tomorrow. Success is cumulative.   The regular, systematic investments in your retirement plan or investment portfolio will seem insignificant at the moment but will make you wealthy in the future.   As you go through your day today, make choices that will bring you success in the future.   Today’s the day!

When we offer thoughtful feedback to others, we can be part of the solution to problems. Yet why do we sometimes resist giving it? And what are some effective ways to present feedback so that others can more easily receive it? One of the main reasons we resist giving feedback is we're afraid that if we do offer it we won't be liked or accepted, as detailed in Lesson #6 of Brian Klemmer's book, When Good Intentions Run Smack into Reality . Employees might hesitate to offer feedback because their boss might take it personally, get angry and not promote them. We might withhold an opinion from a friend because we're afraid the friend will feel hurt and consequently avoid us. We may fear that honest input will rock the boat in our marriage. But when we listen to our fears, our lives stop being about contribution and making a difference. How can we get beyond our feedback fears? Implement these three ways to make feedback more palatable to the receiver. First, ask permission. Simply ask the person if they're open to feedback. If you don't, offering feedback may be like trying to walk through a closed door – in other words, you're just wasting your breath. Whether it's your spouse, your kids, an employee or a downline in your network marketing business, anytime you ask permission and they respond with a yes, you've got an open door to offer your evaluation. If the person says no, then reconsider whether or not you want to give feedback. You may decide to go ahead, but be aware that the chances they'll receive it are pretty slim. After you receive permission, choose your wording carefully. Use phrases such as, "My experience when this happened was…" or "From my viewpoint…." This language makes the other individual less likely to take your input personally or as truth. An example is: "My experience when you raised your voice was that it made me want to shut down. I felt like a little kid and you were like my dad yelling at me." This statement says nothing about who is at fault or what is true. It is my experience or viewpoint of a particular situation. A third step to offering feedback is to sandwich what didn't work in between what did work. Suppose a friend in network marketing invites you to listen in on his presentation to a prospect. Using the sandwich technique, you might later say, "My experience of what worked was that you were confident and specific in your request. From my viewpoint, it didn't seem as if you established a connection with the prospect. Another thing that I thought worked well was the organization of the material in your presentation." This format circumvents, to a degree, people's attachment to good and bad, and the tendency for others to take your input personally. Let's determine to be a part of the solution to problems by learning to offer feedback. Practice these three steps: ask permission, chose your wording carefully, and apply the sandwich technique to increase your contribution to the world around you.

During the Thanksgiving season, we invariably engage in the annual traditions involving food, family, friends, fun, and football.  Occasionally, some of us might give a thought to something we're thankful for, but it is too often the exception and not the norm.  I would like to see you make Thanksgiving a part of your daily routine throughout every day of the entire year.  Thanksgiving can be your antidote for fear, depression, anger, greed, or jealousy.  It is impossible to have any of these destructive emotions while you're being thankful.   If you are at all familiar with me through any of my speeches, books, or movies, you have probably heard about  The Golden List .  This is a life-changing principle that was taught to me by my grandmother when I was just a preschooler.  Apparently, during a visit to my grandparents' home, I was in a bad mood because I didn't have my friends, my dog, or my toys around to keep me occupied.  I guess I was whining or complaining about it, and my grandmother told me I could complain all I wanted once I filled out my Golden List.  When I told her I didn't know what that was, she explained that a Golden List is simply the process of writing down 10 things for which you are thankful. I have been following this process every day for more than 50 years, and I have found it to be a miracle cure for almost anything that is wrong in my world.  Gratitude sets the tone for success, abundance, cooperation, and creativity.  It causes us to focus on what we have instead of what we don't have, which is the beginning of all success.  You may consider the Golden List a gift from my grandmother through me to you.  You should take the standard dose of writing down 10 things for which you are thankful for daily, and conditions in your life will improve dramatically.  Please feel free to share your prescription for your Golden List with family, friends, and colleagues.  Not only will you improve their world, you will improve your own world as you won't be surrounded with as much whining, complaining, or negative emotion.    I would encourage all families to make the Thanksgiving holiday a time to publicly share at least one thing that each person around the table is thankful for, and then collectively agree to keep the Golden List going all year long.  This one tradition will make you thankful for everything in your past and give you many more things to be thankful for next Thanksgiving. As you go through your day today, give yourself and your loved ones the gift of the Golden List. Today's the day!

Revelation is such an incredibly powerful thing. Becoming aware of something you were previously unaware of provides you choice in places where you previously felt trapped. This is the ability to renew your mind. This is why discovering sunglasses is crucial to exponential growth. When we have sunglasses, ideas we buy as reality, that are driving us and we do not even know they are there, we are operating automatically through beliefs that may be holding us back. Some sunglasses work in life, some do not. A set of sunglasses I have encountered often lately in my life, and in coaching others, is the belief that life is hard. The belief that our world right now is hard. The belief that things are difficult, and that life is a lot of work and that it may not work out. This mindset creates a lot of pain, struggle and exhaustion. I am not suggesting that there are not things in life that may be hard. What I am suggesting is it does not have to ALWAYS be hard. You do not have to build it in. If it is hard, do it hard. There are things in life worth fighting for, that could be hard, and they are worth it. And, if you walk into a situation and you already believe that it will be difficult, guess what, it will be. You will create a hard experience based on what you believed would happen before you walked into the situation in the first place. You can turn a beautiful situation into a tough situation through your power of how you believe it will look. If you believe, “No pain, no gain,” you are literally requiring yourself to have pain to have gain. I don’t believe it has to be that way. You can gain with no pain! On the flip side, if you will not attempt it because you want to avoid pain, and it COULD be painful, you never get to see the beauty of what’s possible when you get uncomfortable and try it anyway. What if you assumed there would be pain so you unconsciously avoided gain? In a season when so many are in doubt, have anxiety, are weary, etcetera, why not choose to believe it could be joyful? What if it could be easy? Have you ever done something that you over-thought for far too long, and after you completed it you realize you wasted a lot of time and energy on something that turned out to be “not that bad?” “Pain is real. Suffering is optional.” - Brian Klemmer How can you change the story? How can you actively choose to believe good about an upcoming situation or circumstance? Can you view it as easy? Could you choose for it to be fun? Maybe you believe it’s a challenge and you’re up for it! What if it was even an opportunity? Today, and every day, remember you have a choice. You are in the driver's seat of your own life. You get to design it. I encourage you to design it in a direction that creates the greatest good for you, and everyone you influence.