We often see a great emphasis from attention grabbing headlines on the various disappointments and sufferings we endure during our journey. The tragedies seem to garner the most views, clicks, and “stickiness factor” for advertisers.

On a more personal level, some of these are relatively light-hearted sufferings like a missed plane, a canceled meeting, or the important phone call that was dropped while navigating a big-city traffic jam. However, many of us would classify some sufferings as almost too much to endure, like the untimely death of a loved one, a parent holding the hand of a terminally ill child, the heartbreaking destruction of a once close family, or the addiction that resulted in a tragic ending.

Although we all hope to avoid a great deal of pain and suffering in this world, the reality is that we all will endure our share of suffering. Most of us will find a way to carry on, some in silence and some with a loud roar. There is no escaping disappointment, discouragement, and suffering. Our typical pathway to addressing suffering is to rally our own strength, perhaps we are fortunate to gain some encouragement from others close to us, and we endure the journey with the hope that we will somehow continue to grow stronger through the experience.

As we continue on our journey to be our best for those we care about most, there is a another side of suffering that is helpful to address. This other side of suffering is an opportunity to grow in empathy towards the suffering of others in order to be a genuine and relevant source of comfort to those in need.

When we walk through the valley of suffering, as opposed to growing bitter or spending too much precious energy on the endless wondering of “why me,” we have an opportunity to deeply understand the suffering of others and proactively reach out to help them find comfort in their own troubled time.

There is often no greater connection that can be made with someone suffering through a difficult family experience than one who also has walked through that experience. Those who have endured the financial hardship of a painful bankruptcy are often the most effective in guiding others through the experience of rebuilding their credit and confidence. Who better to support and encourage someone struggling with addiction than someone who has walked down that same road?

Those who have endured a particular hardship are very often the most helpful to relate to the needs of those dealing with a similar struggle. The other side of suffering can be an opportunity to build and strengthen our character and have a positive impact on others when we make a decision to:

1. Make the choice to grow in empathy towards the suffering of others as opposed to growing bitter through our own experience.
2. Act on an opportunity to make a connection with someone who is enduring a similar struggle to our own.
3. Grow stronger, not just by enduring our own struggle, but also by the truth that being a comfort to others in need grows our own capacity to live a more abundant life.

As we leverage the experience of our own suffering to help others in need, we build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive impact in this world.

How can I help you today? My mobile is 269-370-9275 and my email is david@harvesttimepartners.com
Please download some FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com I hope you will find them helpful in your journey to be your best for those you care about most.

“Put Me in Coach” is the memorable line from John Fogerty’s song Centerfield that has been playing at stadiums across the US for years and has rivaled Take Me Out to the Ball Game as the anthem for baseball memories.

The song highlights a theme in many of our lives about the impact of a coach and a game we played to our fullest.  Whether it was a baseball or basketball coach, a band or theatre instructor, a teacher for a subject we were passionate about, the impact of a coach that uplifted our spirit, built our confidence and added fuel to the fire within ourselves was memorable and left an indelible mark on our life’s journey.

In today’s increasingly competitive and intense world, the traditional coach of the school or community team seems no longer sufficient for kids to be their best as we see families going all out to ensure kids have access to a personal coach, instructors, and specialized sessions with experts in the field. We see leading athletes and actors who always seem to have an army of coaches and trainers to ensure they are continuously raising the bar on their performance.

The question that needs to be asked on all this effort to be our best is where does this leave the average adult “Joe” and “Jane” like most of us? As we look to be our best at home, work and in the community there still seems to be a heavy stigma on any of us getting some coaching to be our very best for those we care about most. Sure, there are plenty of self-help tools nowadays to get some insight to help increase our effectiveness in the important areas of life. However, those easily accessible tools still fall short in replacing the engagement that a personal coach can provide in the traditional sense of experience.

Whether it is to be our best in our role in the home, work or community, we all could use the helpful boost that comes from some direct, traditional engagement with a coach.

A coach or trusted advisor or counselor or therapist or friend (whatever label works for your story and mine) brings about some effective ways to help us be our best for those we care about most.

Here are a few benefits to help encourage all of us to connect with a coach:

• A safe environment to share. We all carry around a few “silent” burdens. Having a safe place to get those burdens out on the table will help.  
• Another point of view of our situation. We are all on the field of play with a limited viewpoint that is restricted by our own experience. A coach can help widen our view.
• Some additional action steps to take. We can get stuck in some patterns of behavior that are not always effective. A coach can help get us out of our rut and try some new steps to improve.
• An occasional kick in the A&%. We all can get comfortable and make excuses to remain in our place. A coach can help call out the truth that we have unlimited potential to make a positive impact and sometimes a swift kick or loud voice is just what we need to work a little harder to bring about amazing results.  

Partnering with a coach will help us move further and faster on our journey to build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity for us to reach our full potential and make a positive impact on those around us.

How can I help you today? My mobile is 269-370-9275 and my email is david@harvesttimepartners.com  

Please download some FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com  I hope you will find them helpful in your journey to be your best for those you care about most.

We all remain amazed at the rapid pace of technology advancement in all areas of our lives. However, the conversation gets kind of quiet when it comes to the technological advances on increasing our time. We face the same challenges people did thousands of years ago and most likely those challenges will be the same for people thousands of years into the future. We cannot make any more time. We all get 24 hours each day and that is it.

Time is the great equalizer in our world.  It does not matter how rich or how poor, how intelligent or how ignorant, how privileged or how marginalized, everyone gets the same amount every day. There will never be the possibility of a mandate to redistribute time from those who have plenty to those who have little. With an equal amount granted to everyone, those who use it wisely reap the greatest rewards regardless of their current situation.

As we continue on our journey to be our best for those we care about most at home, work, and in our community, we need to periodically challenge our routines around the normal cadence of our days to see if we are being good stewards of the gift of time.

Here a few thoughts on the importance of guarding our time:

1. Be present in the moment: When we remain focused on an individual, a task at hand, or an experience and we eliminate the distraction of multi-tasking, we lessen the risk of losing time to re-doing the work or repairing the relationship. In addition, being fully present in the moment with someone strengthens the relationship more than anything else we can do. Being mindful to pay full attention in these moment-to-moment experiences will help make the most of our time.
2. Find moments to decompress: We can get overwhelmed daily as we jump from one frying pan to the other which can create some zig-zag patterns in our days which burns time. Creating brief moments where we can unplug from the cadence of the daily grind provides us with a chance to catch our breath and confirm our daily direction to help minimize time wasters like getting lost in the chaos of daily life.  Whether it is taking a brief walk in the fresh air, simply walking away from a computer or smart phone screen, or having a snack in a quiet moment are all helpful steps to break a pattern of constantly scrambling around from task to task.
3. Connect on the long-term plan: At some point in our day like an early morning or evening before bed, we should pick our heads up and reconnect with the long-term plan of our life. Taking a brief moment to step back and reflect on the big picture beyond our present situation has been proven to be helpful in using our time wisely each day as we work toward achieving that long-term plan of our lives.

As we make daily decisions to guard our time, we build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity for us to reach our full potential and make a positive impact on those around us.

How can I help you today? My mobile is 269-370-9275 and my email is david@harvesttimepartners.com  

Please download some FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com  I hope you will find them helpful in your journey to be your best for those you care about most.

We all seem to want a fair amount of freedom and independence in the manner we live our lives at home, work, and in the community. Freedom and independence provide us a great deal of space to create, search for more effective ways, and enable us to stay one step ahead of the problems that can develop from getting stuck in a routine rut around the important things in life.

As we all look to be more effective in the roles we play, it is critical that we acknowledge the other side of freedom and independence, and that is responsibility. When we have one without the other, the environment we operate in starts to breakdown. Well-trained psychologists and kitchen table counselors would all come to the same conclusion that refusing to take responsibility and blaming others when things go awry with the choices we make within our freedom and independence is not a healthy pathway over the long term. When we consistently apply blame to others, it can become a real hinderance to our personal development and some observers would identify it as a borderline personality disorder.

Here a few thoughts as we look to set a strong example around freedom and responsibility to ensure we are our best for those we care about most at home, work, and in the community:

1. Freedom and independence create the foundation for great progress in any endeavor. When we have too restrictive guardrails, we eventually create a rut that will become simply a coffin with the ends kicked out of it.
2. We must embrace the universal and timeliness truth that we are responsible for the choices we make with our freedom and independence. We can’t have one without the other for the long term…maybe in the short term, but not over the long term.
3. Over time, as we become more effective in shouldering the burden of responsibility with our freedom and independence, we take an important step to ensure our freedom and independence remain for the future.  If we consistently play the blame game in follow-up to our choices, then those close to us at home, work and in the community have a tendency to clamp down on freedoms and independence as we set an example that we can’t handle them and need to be somewhat controlled with a few extra guardrails.

As we continue down the long road to build and strengthen our character, we need to support freedom and independence while we also remain firm in our responsibility to own the outcome.  Refusing to play the blame game and simply owning the outcome of our choices are admirable and rare qualities that will result in setting a strong example for others to follow that Character Creates Opportunity to reach our full potential and make a positive impact on those around us.

How can I help you today? My mobile is 269-370-9275 and my email is david@harvesttimepartners.com  

Please download some FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com  I hope you will find them helpful in your journey to be your best for those you care about most.