One Final Thought...

Have you ever read a book that really "speaks" to you? One that is truly inspirational and motivational? Maybe it's a biography of someone you admire, or a book of quotes, or a novel with a strong message—a book that has real value because it gave you so many wonderful ideas. That is not a book that should be read once and put on a shelf. Go back and read it again. Read it again every month, or every six months, or once a year.

When you do go back to it, you'll find that its original message has increased tenfold. That's because by the next time you read it, you will have changed. You will have taken actions inspired by your first reading, and those actions will have added to your life experience. You've gathered more knowledge from other sources that may now change your understanding of what you read before. You are merging your new knowledge base with the information you previously gathered. The words of the book remain the same, but everything else is now different. You enrich your original reading of the book and get a whole new meaning from it.

Change has considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. Obviously, then, one's character and frame of mind determine how readily he brings about change and how he reacts to change that is imposed on him.

—King Whitney, Jr.,
business executive

One of the things that help us deal with change is having a strong foundation and solid ground to stand on. That way we will not be blown away by the winds of change. In every company I work for as a consultant, they always come back to the reinforcement of the basics that made them successful in the first place. They want me to help their people get back to those fundamentals. Losing those fundamentals leads to the downturn of many companies. In times of turbulence, the one who has the strongest base is the one who is left standing.