Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Procrastination

“Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you want to do it or not.”

Skip Ross

When I was approaching the time for me to leave the Navy, I decided I’d go to college and become a Pharmacist like my Dad. I thought that since he owned a drug store, I would probably inherit the store, so I might as well become a Pharmacist. Neither of my sisters, nor my brother had any interest in pharmacy. So when I got out December 7th, 1953, I told Dad that I had decided to go to college and become a Pharmacist, but I wanted to wait until the following September to start. Dad told me that if I was going to go, I should start now instead of waiting. Knowing what I know about myself now, he was right. The longer you put something off, the harder it is to start at all. I probably would never have started at all if I hadn’t started when I did. I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had waited?

Don’t procrastinate. Delaying just makes it harder to do. As Skip Ross says; “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you like it or not.” Life is so much easier if you don’t procrastinate. When you have that urge to delay doing something, just say to yourself, “Do it now!”

Belief (Placebo effect)

If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.

Denis Waitley

One day a woman went to see Dr. Bill Markham, a local Doctor in Ottawa, Ks. She complained of all kinds of aches and pains. Dr. Markham examined her and couldn’t find anything wrong, so he called in a prescription for #100 aspirin. Dad filled it and charged her 85 cents. Two weeks later, she was back in Dr Markhams office complaining about the same things and saying the medicine just didn’t work. Dr Markham examined her again; still nothing wrong with her. He  called dad and told him to give her #100 Lilly’s pink ASA Compound(same thing as before, just a different brand) and told dad, “Don’t you dare charge her 85 cents, charge her $3.85.” The medicine worked wonders. She thought because the first medicine was so cheap, it wasn’t any good.

The power of belief, strong belief, makes a great deal of difference, not just in medicine, but in every area of life. Belief has to be a part of every step of the achievement process. You have to believe that you have the talent and ability to achieve what you want to do, and that you deserve to achieve it. Without that belief you probably won’t put in enough effort for a long enough period of time to make it happen.

Believe me, I know this from experience. I’m pretty good at visualizing and dreaming, I know how to set goals and develop plans for achieving those goals, but when it comes to putting them into action, sometimes I fall a little short. I’m good at procrastination, and most of the time, it’s because I really don’t believe strongly enough. Here’s what I do believe. If God has put a dream in your heart, then He has also given you the talents and abilities to achieve that dream, otherwise He wouldn’t have put it there. But we have to believe that this is true. Here’s something else I believe. We don’t have to know everything before we start, we just have to start. Just like a rocket doesn’t need it’s guidance system activated until it launches off it’s pad, God can’t guide us until we launch off our pads.

So what do you want to achieve? Do you believe it’s possible for you? Will achieving this move you closer to fulfilling your purpose in life? If you know what you want, and you can answer “yes” to these questions, then go for it. The guidance will come.

Gerald Briscoe

gbriscoe1@cox.net

757-348-3610

“Many of us share the same problem—we don’t think through how our choices might play out down the line.”

— Suze Orman

“Wealth is in restraint, not indulgence.”

Unknown

One day a farmer came in our Drug Store to buy a product to use on his cows. It had gone up a nickel  in price, and he said, “That’s the way it is, everything us farmers need goes up, and everything we sell goes down. That’s why I’m retiring.” Jokingly, I said, “You mean you’ve made enough money farming to retire?” He said, “Yep, saved $100,000.These young kids get into farming today, have a few good years, and spend it all. Then when the bad years come along, they don’t have any money to carry them through, and they have to get out. I saved everything I could during the good years, then when the bad years came, I could make it through. That’s how I saved $100,000.” That was a lot of money in the late 40′s. I never forgot what he said, even though I didn’t always put it into practice. I sure wish I had, especially when our kids started to college. If I had, I wouldn’t have had to work three jobs to put them through. It was only after they all graduated that I started to seriously save any money. It’s really hard to catch up.

There’s a good book, called The Richest man in Babylon. It’s an old book, but it’s still relevant today. It’s about a young man who hires on as a camel driver for a rich merchant, and the lessons he learned about creating wealth. Basically , it says that if you”ll save 10% of everything that comes to you, give 10% away to worthy causes, and live on the rest, you can become wealthy. But you have to start early in life for the compound interest to work for you. The longer you wait to start saving, the harder it is and the more you have to save each month.

Develop the habit of saving each month, even if it’s just a little bit. As Suzie Orman puts it, learn to enjoy watching your savings grow as much, or more, than you do spending and accumulating more things. Learn to practice delayed gratification like the old farmer did. The rainy days will come, as well as retirement age, so prepare yourself now. Dig your well before you need the water.

Gerald Briscoe

757-348-3610

gbriscoe1@cox.net

“The longest distance between two points is a shortcut”

Nancy Dornan, Co-Founder, Network TwentyOne

When Dad bought the old Earl Hill Drug Store in Ottawa, Ks. in the summer of 1947, we had to live in the back end of the store. There wasn’t enough money to buy a house and the store. Dad said it was the worst time in his life, to have to make his family live like that. We all had to work at the store, because there wasn’t enough money to hire any help. I did a little of everything, even help fill prescriptions. Dad would weigh out the ingredients according to the formula, and put them in a mortar. My job was to grind them up into a fine powder. I would grind for a while, and Dad would look at it and say “No, it’s not fine enough, grind some more. It was time consuming work. When it was ready, I would dump the powder out onto a pill tile and form it into a square, divide it into 30 little piles, then take an empty gelatin capsule apart,  fill the big end with the powder, and then weigh it to make sure it had the right amount of powder in it. Each of the 30 capsules had to weigh exactly the same. Dad was very careful to follow the formula exactly. If he didn’t, the patient, and the Doctor wouldn’t get the results they were looking for. You couldn’t take any shortcuts, or leave anything out.

Network TwentyOne has developed a system(formula) for creating successful businesses. But, if you don’t follow the system exactly, just like we did with the prescription formula, you won’t get the results you want. The Network TwentyOne business system has been proven to work in 36 countries. But, you can’t take shortcuts. You have to follow the system exactly. Jim Dornan said they tried everything at least twice, just to make sure it didn’t work. Nancy Dornan says, “The longest distance between two points is a shortcut. If you try to leave anything out, or do some aspect part way, it just won’t work, or give you the results you want.

If you want to talk about it, to see if this system may be a fit for you, give me a call.

Gerald Briscoe

gbriscoe1@cox.net

757-348-3610

What I want to share with you this week is something that came from the leadership of Network TwentyOne several years ago, but it’s just as appropriate today. This will be in an abbreviated form. If you want a copy of the complete article, let me know.

The process of achievement can be broken down into five stages:

• A DESIRE AND A DREAM
• GOALS
• PLANNING
• ACTION
• BELIEF

STAGE # 1: DESIRE

One of life’s great question is, “Why do some people succeed while others don’t?” Above all, they are dreamers. They dream of what they want and they expect to have it. They focus on their dream, they protect it and they nurture it. Achievers learn to mentally picture things as they can be, and then work to make that picture a reality.

STAGE #2: GOALS

Your desire causes you to dream, and as you dream you develop a mental picture of what you want. Focus on a desire, and a hazy dream will become a specific goal. Write those specific goals down.

STAGE # 3: PLANNING

To merely dream and have no plan at all is wishful thinking. A destination and a timetable are essential ingredients in the process. It’s hard to plan a trip if you don’t know where you are going. That’s why goals have to come before planning.

STAGE # 4: ACTION

But dreams, goals, and plans may all vaporize without action. What you have to decide is this: are you serious enough about your desires to take action?

STAGE # 5: BELIEF

Belief must precede and accompany action. The most difficult part of succeeding is believing that you can. If we don’t believe we can do something, our lack of belief causes us to not work hard at it and our lack of work actually seals our own fate. Action never occurs until we believe we can do it.

Gerald Briscoe

gbriscoe1@cox.net

757-348-3610

“If you don’t change directions, you’ll end up where you’re headed”

Jim Dornan, founder of Network Twentyone

When I was struggling to put my kids through college, I took a part time job at Tidewater Psychiatric Institute. For six years I worked my day off there, and it helped tremendously. But after six years they decided they needed a Pharmacist for three days a week instead of one, so I lost about $8000 income per year over night. That hurt. I needed to find some way to replace that income, but I wanted to find something that wouldn’t go away again because of someone else’s decision. I wanted to make sure the income would continue even if I couldn’t continue to work. I found it with the I-Commerce business model and the Network Twentyone business system. Network Twentyone has provided us with a proven business system that operates successfully in 36 countries. And it’s working for me too.

I don’t know what your situation is, but if an additional source of income would be of benefit to you, and if it wouldn’t affect your present source of income; if you’re open minded about business ideas and not afraid of a little work, this may be of help to you too. If, after getting the information about the system, you decide this is not a fit for you, then just tell us “this is not a fit for me” and we won’t go any further. On the other hand, if this system interests you, I will help you be as successful as you want to be. Let’s get together and have some coffee and talk about it.

Gerald Briscoe

gbriscoe1@cox.net

757-348-3610