I’ll always remember that morning when my mom woke me up early on June 6, 1944 and showed me the headlines in the San Diego Union newspaper:  “D-Day…..Allies Land on Normandy Beach.” She smiled and said “what nicer birthday present could a boy ever get?” She was right, of course.

The beginning of the end of the deadliest war in history was a precious present that is forever etched in my memory. I saved that newspaper and glance at it often to remind me to live by “inclusion,” rather than by “exclusion.”

Today is a memorable day for another reason, not because it’s my birthday, but because D-Day has a new significance as the day when Denis finally went Digital and Downloadable in his profession. For much too long www.waitley.com has stubbornly held on to the dinosaur age of hardcover books, CD and DVD albums and printed, packaged programs.

I guess I would prefer a last name of “Swiftly” instead of “Waitley,” since I waited until the e-book and I-pad revolution was well underway before seriously picking up speed myself on the information superhighway.

I’ll always be grateful for the creative persistence of my colleague, webmaster & marketing guru, Andy Broadaway, who lit the torch and led me out of the forest into the digital age.

In the days, weeks and months to come, I hope you’ll visit often and share your own dreams, desires and experiences so we can all win the game of life together.

The new www.waitley.com is just the beginning of an exciting dimension in our stewardship and we look forward to upgrading and improving every day based on the feedback we receive from friends like you.

And always remember, “Winners believe in their dreams, when that’s all they have to hang on to!”

Denis

The power brokers in the new global arena will be the knowledge facilitators. Ignorance will be even more the tyrant and enslaver than in the past. As you look in the mirror to see the 21st Century you, there will also be another image standing beside you. It is your competition. Your competition, from now on, will be a hungry immigrant with a wireless, hand-held, digital assistant. Hungry for food, hungry for a home, for a new car, for security, for a college education.

Hungry for knowledge. Smart, quick thinking, skilled and willing to do anything necessary to be competitive in the world marketplace. Working long hours and Saturdays, staying open later, serving customers better and more cheerfully. To be a player in the 21st Century you have to be willing to give more in service than you receive in payment. These are the new rules in the game of life. These are the actions you must take to be a leader and a winner in your personal and professional life. By mastering these profoundly simple action steps, you will be positioned to be a change master in the new century. Action Step Number One – Consider Yourself Self-Employed, But Be a Team Player.

What this means is that you are your own Chief Executive Officer of your future. Start thinking of yourself as a service company with a single employee. You’re a small company that puts your services to work for a larger company. Tomorrow you may sell those services to a different organization, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less loyal to your current employer. Taking responsibility for yourself in this way does mean that you never equate your personal long-term interests with your employer’s.

The first idea is resolving not to suffer the fate of those who lost their jobs and found their skills were obsolete.

The second is to begin immediately the process of protecting yourself against that possibility – by becoming proactive instead of reactive. Ask yourself these questions: How vulnerable am I? What trends must I watch? What information must I gain? What knowledge do I lack? Again, think of yourself as a company. Set up a training department in your mind and make certain your top employee is updating his or her skills.

Make sure you have your own private pension plan, knowing that you are responsible for your own financial security. Entrusting the government or an employer, other than yourself, with your retirement income is like hiring a compulsive gambler as your accountant.

You’re the CEO of your daily life who must have the vision to set your goals and allocate your resources. The mindset of being responsible for your own future used to be crucial only to the self-employed, but it has become essential for us all. Today’s typical employees are no longer one-career people. Most will have five separate careers in their lifetimes. Remember, your competition is a hungry immigrant with a laptop. Action Step Number One is to consider yourself to be self-employed, but be a team player. Action Step Number Two – Be Flexible in the Face of Daily Surprises.

We live in a time-starved, overstressed, violent society. Much of our over-reaction to what happens to us every day is a result of our self-indulgent value system, where we blame others for our problems, look to organizations or the government for our solutions, thirst for immediate sensual gratification and believe we should have privileges without responsibilities. This condition is manifested in the high crime rate and in the increase in violence in the work place where employees blame their managers for threatening their security. I have learned how to be flexible in the face of daily surprises, which is one of the most important action traits for a leader.

I really haven’t been angry for about 17 years. During that time, no one has tried to physically harm me or someone close to me. I’ve learned to adapt to stress in life and reserve my fear or anger for imminently physically dangerous situations. I rarely, if ever, get upset with what people say, do or don’t do, even if it inconveniences me. I do react emotionally when I see someone physically or emotionally abusing or victimizing another. But I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff.

The Serenity Prayer, “Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.”, is a valuable measuring tool we can apply to our lives. Simple yet profound words to live by. Credit Statement to be Included in Reprints Reproduced with permission from Denis Waitley’s Weekly Ezine. To subscribe to Denis Waitley’s Weekly Ezine, go to www.deniswaitley.com or send an email with Join in the subject to subscribe@deniswaitley.com Copyright © 2005 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

It changes the nature of competition, because in a networked world, we can ignore geographic limits to our shopping. People, information and services are merging together, all in the name of time-based competitive advantage.

Here is a check-off list of important considerations.

How many on the list are part of your daily life?

E-Mail is now the most popular method of communication next to the telephone in the industrialized nations. And, you can now transmit your e-mail by voice mail. It is possible and reasonable to expect that you can answer 30 e-mail messages in one hour, or one every two minutes. This is equivalent to answering personal correspondence at the rate of 30 letters per hour, without a secretary.

If you communicate long distance, nationally or globally by phone . through the use of Internet phone or software – you can talk indefinitely without long distance phone charges over the Internet. By paying only the monthly, on-line service charge, you can reduce your long distance phone bills immeasurably by communicating verbally, computer to computer, with individuals having compatible software.

Since it will be desirable to be multi-national in your business and personal relationships, by installing foreign language software you’ll be able to have all of your word processing appear on the screen in two languages.

Select at least one new language you feel will be desirable to learn during the next few years and install the software for that language. By having your correspondence appear in both your native language and one new language, both in text and audio, it is a great way to learn.

As you look toward the future, be prepared to have at least one of the following: An ISDN phone line for your modem. A cable service for your modem. Or a satellite dish for your modem. Cable and satellite modem services will be mandatory as requirements for speed and quality of downloading large quantities of information and graphics increase.

Ensure that your computer is upgraded for real-time audio, MP3, and video streaming, so you’ll be able to receive information from the Internet in real time. Consider investing in video conferencing equipment that allows you to hold live video conferences at multiple locations nationally and internationally, with multiple clients. Although video conferencing will not replace live seminars and meetings, it will reduce the costs and greatly increase the number of clients that can be served at the same time, in the knowledge century.

Action Idea: Pick at least two friends or business associates living in other countries, or in other parts of this country, that you will e-mail at least once every two weeks.

Credit Statement to be Included in Reprints

Reproduced with permission from Denis Waitley’s Weekly Ezine. To subscribe to Denis Waitley’s Weekly Ezine, go to www.waitley.com or send an email with Join in the subject to www.waitley.com

Copyright © 2005 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

What is the contact information for the natural gifts testing that Dr. Waitley talked about?

Answer:

You can get more information by visiting the Johnson O’Connor Website at www.jocrf.org or by contacting the location nearest you from the list below.

Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation Human Engineering Laboratory

ATLANTA – (404) 261-8013

3400 Peachtree Road, N.E., Suite 1023, Atlanta, Georgia 30326

BOSTON – (617) 536-0409

347 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116

CHICAGO – (312) 787-9141

161 East Erie Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611

DALLAS / FORT WORTH – (214) 550-9033 METRO: (214) 751-0083

5525 MacArthur Blvd, Suite 270, Irving, Texas 75038

DENVER – (303) 388-5600

One Cherry Center, Suite 480, Denver, Colorado 80222

HOUSTON – (713) 783-3411

3200 Wilcrest, Suite 340, Houston, Texas 77042

LOS ANGELES – (213) 380-1947

3345 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 210, Los Angeles, California 90010

NEW YORK – (212) 838-0550

11 East 62nd Street, New York, New York 10021

SAN FRANCISCO – (415) 772-9030

77 Geary St., Suite 301, San Francisco, California 94108

SEATTLE – (206) 623-4070

1218 Third Ave., Suite 900, Seattle, Washington 98101

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (301) 424-9445

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