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The Compound Effect

Friday, May 4th, 2012

I recently read a wonderful personal and professional development book by Darren Hardy called The Compound Effect. To say that it’s a “good book filled with a wealth of resources” is an understatement. When I read a book or article, I highlight and use tabs when I come across ideas, quotes, great stories or pick up any nuggets that I can share with my clients and friends. It’s safe to say that most of the text is now highlighted yellow.

The gist of the book is this – every action and thought, no matter how small, simple or inconsequential, compounds over time. And, over time that “compounding effect” will create exponential results. These actions will either work FOR you by helping you to accomplish your goals, desires and dreams. Or, they will work AGAINST you taking you so far off course that you won’t recognize yourself or the goals and dreams you long to achieve.

Here is a great example of the power of compounding: Let’s say someone have you a choice of taking $100,000 right now, or, get a penny a day that would double each day for 30 days. On day one, you get a penny. On day two, you get two pennies. And on day three, you get four pennies, etc.

So which one would you want? If you took the $100,000, you sold yourself short. Why? The power of compounding. The penny deal would have given you $5.4 million at the end of 30 days.

Simple? Yes. Easy? No. Why? Because we tend to not be patient or persistent enough to do what we need to do to get what we set our hearts and mind to accomplish.

Several of my coaching clients who have read The Compound Effect implemented small actions in their lives and work. Here are examples of a few and the results they envision:

Doing 15 minutes of personal / professional development a day. The result: to develop and further themselves personally and professionally

Drinking and tracking daily water intake. The result: having a healthy, hydrated body and glowing skin.

Planning each day at the beginning of the day (or end of the day before). The result: more focused, on purpose and productive days.

Creating a morning routine of meditation, exercise and gratitude lists. The result: to have a more relaxed, peaceful, healthy and fulfilling work-life.
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Here’s an App to Get Excited About!

Monday, April 16th, 2012

If you’ve met me, then you know that I am a huge fan of the power of daily practices to propel you to the desired results that you want. Having a daily practice of quite time (prayer and or meditation), followed by visualization, affirmations and writing gratitude lists is one of the most powerful daily practices that we can do.

My good friend, Alissa recently shared a new app with me that is worth spreading the word about. It’s called Inspire! The app is designed to help users create and visualize personal and professional values and goals. It even helps you to achieve those through weekly planning.

To read more about a great tool that may help you to focus on what matters most, go to:

http://innova-mobile.com/ima/InspireApp.aspx.

Deseri Garcia
Vida Aventura
317-362-4898
www.vidaaventura.net

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Triple Win

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Ever thought about creating a team building triple win?

In the past several years more and more companies are focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs that involve combining team building and philanthropy. CSR team building programs range from packing backpacks for kids to restoring parks to neighborhood clean-up efforts.

The range of programs offered varies and is ever growing. Below is list of a few examples:

• Building bikes for kids
• Mini golf course can food drives
• Build a bear to donate to charity
• Neighborhood cleanup scavenger hunts
• Care packages for soldiers overseas
• Build a dollhouse to donate to underprivileged girls
• Team cook-off’s to make meals for the needy
• Habitat for Humanity Building
• Neighborhood restoration projects

The result of blending your philanthropic passion, your company mission, your team’s power is win, win, win: The community wins, your company wins and your team wins. Not to mention the impact on your bottom line and the fulfillment of knowing that you’ve made a difference in your community and in the lives of others. The sum of the equation is everyone wins.

Deseri Garcia
Vida Aventura
317-362-4898
www.vidaaventura.net

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Finding Four Leaf Clovers

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

“One of the reasons that people can’t find four leaf clovers is that they are too busy looking at all of the three leaf clovers” – Marjorie.

Over the last several years I have been having fun taking pictures of four leaf clovers when I find them and posting them on my Facebook page. It’s exciting for me when I do find them because I was one of those people who couldn’t find one if it was staring me in the face. To add to the pressure, my Mom is a four leaf clover aficionado and finds them all of the time. It was not until my good friend, Dr. Sue Morter, taught me to slow down … just sit down, actually and “be the clover” that they began to show up everywhere. (My first ever five leaf clover is pictured above)

Dr. Sue Morter, my four leaf clover teacher and owner of Morter Institute & Health Center in Indianapolis, wrote a beautiful blog about the experience that opened her up to SEE-ing and listening within. Take some time to “just sit down”, read on and learn. You’ll be glad you did.

”There is a purpose for every event that occurs in our lives: Service. Everything that occurs serves as an opportunity for us to come to know ourselves more fully as an empowered co-creator of our experience. No exceptions.

In the first three months after my mother Marjorie’s passing, I found 69 four leaf clovers. This was not because I was particularly gifted in any way, but rather because I simply slowed down enough to see them. And when I did see them, sometimes three or four at a time, a deep and overwhelming sense of joy slipped in between the crushing grief and reminded me that there was more to the moment than the obvious.

So what was different? I sat down. I stopped from a pace of running a private practice, managing a staff, traveling to all corners of the country and abroad teaching professional seminars, being one of her primary care takers on the weekends and catching a flight back home in order to return to work and begin again on Monday. I stopped with the notion of everything having to get ‘done’. I just sat down. I ‘had’ to.

In that sitting down, in the despair of what felt like losing such a beautiful and rare relationship, my mind stopped and it felt as though all that remained was my breath. Literally all I could focus on was my breathing. Everything else fell away. And something shifted in me. I felt an actual physical, shift. Something let go, and something else ignited. A feeling — (rather than a philosophy) that it really was OK to fully accept my state, trust it, take action from that space or take no action at all, and let go of the outcome — was born.

“One of the reasons that people can’t find four leaf clovers is that they are too busy looking at all of the three leaf clovers”, a favorite quote of mine, offered by Marjorie.
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