Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 428 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

The Five Trails on Life’s Trek – Philosophy Part 2

Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy podcast. This is Day 428 of our trek, and today is Philosophy Friday. Every Friday we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.

Currently, each Friday we are in a multi-week trek as we explore the teachings from some of my virtual mentors, such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Earl Nightingale. The core of our current trek is based primarily on Jim Rohn’s book called The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I have learned a considerable amount from reading and re-reading this book on my own trek of life, and I trust that it will benefit you also. Keeping with the continuity of Wisdom-Trek, I will be adapting it to The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Paula has a couple of her Charlotte friends, which are part of her monthly quilting group, here this week for a retreat. They are busy working on some neat projects, and it is great to be able to share this time with friends. We love to have others share our home here, as it is our philosophy that we are just stewards of what we have.

This week has been a continuation of steady client work and podcast related projects. Even with a steady workload, my mind is constantly seeing new opportunities in so many areas of business and life. I have to continually remind myself, to maintain the lifestyle that we enjoy and is concurrent with our life’s philosophy that we need to focus on any new opportunities in order of importance for this season of life.

We all have a particular philosophy or worldview about life. It is what our integrity or value system is based on. It is also important that we continually refine that philosophy to be successful in any area of life. So far on this extended trek, we have explored what makes up our unique philosophy. On our trek for today, we will continue on the first of five trails on life’s trek, which is the Philosophy Trail. Specifically, we want to explore How to Develop a Powerful Personal Philosophy. So let’s break camp and continue on the first trail of this extended trek as we cover…

The Five Trails on Life’s Trek –Philosophy Part 2

As a reminder, our overall extended trek will cover The Five Trails on Life’s Trek. Those five trails are:

1. Philosophy
2. Attitude
3. Activity
4. Results
5. Lifestyle

The greatest influence on what you decide to do with tomorrow’s opportunity is not going to be circumstance but rather what and how you think. What you think and the conclusions you reach regarding life’s challenges is the sum total of what you have learned until now.

The learning process plays a major role in determining your personal philosophy. Over the years you have managed to gather up considerable knowledge. You cannot live without the information that surrounds you making an impact on how you think. The human mind is continually taking pictures and recording the sights and sounds around us. Every experience is etched into the neurons of the brain. Every word, every song, every television program, every conversation, and every book has made an electrical or chemical imprint on your mental computers. Each emotion, each thought, each activity in which you have been engaged has created a new circuit in the brain, which is linked to all of the other circuits that already existed. All that has touched your life has been indelibly recorded in your mind. All that you are is the result of an accumulation of input, which is intricately connected by a delicate combination of chemical and electrical impulses stored in your three-pound brain. All that has ever happened in and around you is now this uniqueness you call self as an individual human being.

How you use all of this information and the way in which you assemble the knowledge you have gathered forms your personal philosophy. The problem is that much of the information you have gathered has resulted in erroneous conclusions about life that can actually block the achievement of your goals. The only way to eliminate these mental barriers is to review, realign, and revise your personal philosophy.

The best way to establish a new and powerful personal philosophy is to begin with an objective review of the conclusions you have drawn about life. Any conclusion that is not working for you may actually be working against you. Suppose, for example, you decide that your current employer is not paying you enough.  Your value system, based on several years of accumulated information and experiences says, “That’s not fair!” This value judgment causes you to take specific steps in retaliation. As a result, you reduce your efforts, and you do only those things you feel your current paycheck justifies. There is nothing wrong with this decision…provided your goal is to remain where you are, doing what you are currently doing, and getting paid what you are currently getting paid for the rest of your life.

All of your counter-productive beliefs and choices may be the result of years of accumulating misinformation. Perhaps you have simply been around the wrong sources and gathered up the wrong data. The decisions you are making are not wrong based on the information you have, but consider this…What if the information that you have is based on wrong information, which is causing you to make wrong decisions? Unfortunately, these wrong decisions could be leading you further away from rather than closer toward the achievement of your goals.

· The Importance Of New Information

Since it is virtually impossible to identify and erase all of the misleading information in your mental computers, the only way to change your thinking habits is to input new information. Unless you change what you know, you will continue to believe, decide, and act in a manner that is contrary to your best interests. The unfortunate aspect of this is that unless you proactively obtain new information, you may not even realize that your current thinking patterns are detrimental to your overall success.  You need to be continually renewing your mind as the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Getting the information that success and happiness require – and getting it accurately – is essential. Otherwise, you will inevitably drift into ignorance, becoming deluded by your power, your prestige, and your possessions.

The question you need to ask yourself is, “Where can I get new, accurate, and better ideas and information that will enable me to become more than I currently am?” Fortunately, there is a wealth of positive information all around you, just waiting to be used. This is especially true with a world of vast resources on the internet. The next portion of our hike will take us to those points along our trek where you can obtain this information. We will explore the first two points today and continue with more next week.

· Learn From Personal Experiences

The first area to consider is learning from your own personal experiences. One of the best ways to expand the dimensions of your knowledge is by conducting a serious review of your own past experiences. You have virtually a university of experience within you. The books lining the shelves of your minds were written and placed there by all that you have experienced since birth. These experiences continually suggest to you that there is a right way and a wrong way to everything you do, and to every decision that confronts you, as well as to every obstacle that challenges you.

One way to learn to do something right is to do something wrong. You can learn from failure as well as success. Failure must teach you, or surely success will not reward you. Past failures and errors must prompt you to amend current conduct, or the present and the future will be little more than a duplicate of your past.

Regardless of whether you can recall them all, you have recorded memories of past deeds and of the subsequent rewards or consequences of those deeds. The key is to make the memories of past events your servants otherwise the repetition of those events will make you their slave.

You must be diligent to make certain that your memories of past experiences, whether good or bad, are accurate if they are to serve you to make the future better than your past. You must reflect on your past, reliving the moments, pondering the lessons, and refining your current conduct based on the lessons of your personal history. If you have manipulated the truth of the past and if you have tended to blame others, rather than taking responsibility, then you are seeking an escape from reality, and you will be destined to repeat past errors and relive present difficulties.

· Learn From an Outside Voice

Once you have reviewed your lessons from your past, then you need to be open to learning from an outside voice. We could all use a little coaching. In a sense, that is the purpose of this podcast and journal. It brings a new and objective voice to those in search of insights and ideas. You are capable of correcting your own errors, but there is often great value in an outside voice – someone who can provide an objective appraisal of how you are, what you are doing, and the potential impact of your thoughts and actions on your better future.

An objective appraisal from someone whose opinion you respect (someone other than yourself) will enable you to see things that you do not see. In your personal world, you tend to see only the trees, while an objective and capable friend will more likely see the forest. If this information is objectivity brought to you in the form of wise counsel from one you trust and respect, it can lead you to early and accurate information about yourself and your decision-making process. It can prevent you from reaching faulty conclusions based on familiarity with your environment.

You are indeed wise if you discipline yourself to take counsel and suggestion from someone who cares, because the alternative to this is that circumstances will force you to take it from one who does not care.

In the world of business, successful executives often turn to consultants who bring the freshness of an outside voice. Company employees can become so familiar with the problem at hand that they have lost their ability to see the solution that sits on their shoulders.

You must make certain that you have access to your own select person or group of associates to whom you can turn for counsel especially during those times when the winds of life have changed so often that you are no longer certain if you are still on course. Others can help you to examine your actions objectively to ensure that you have not drifted too far away from the fundamentals – the basics.

Today we continued up the Trail of Philosophy, and we began constructing the framework of How to Develop a Powerful Personal Philosophy. This is not an easy hike to make. It requires absorbing new information that may challenge your current philosophy. It will require learning from you own personal experiences. It will also require that you learn from outside mentors that have your best interest in mind.

Next week on Philosophy Friday, we will explore how to learn from other people’s failures and successes. Make sure to join the continuation of our trek on the Trail of Philosophy next Friday. We will discover more information about your philosophy on The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.  I know you will find these insights interesting and profitable in living a rich and satisfying life.

Our next trek will be Motivation Monday where we explore more trails of how to get and stay motivated to bring value to your world. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along on Monday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person inviting them to come along with us each day.

If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically. I would also appreciate it if you would rate and review us on iTunes or Google Play so that others will find out about Wisdom-Trek and join us.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek of life together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Monday!