PUBLISHER'S NOTE by Christopher J. Kuselias
Independence Day means many things to many people. For me, the concept of attaining true independence involves the process of breaking free from fear, worry and doubt so that we attain a state of mind and become congruent with our authentic self. Say what, Chris...?? Sounds like a bunch of motivational babble, you might be thinking. But seriously, the most independent people I know are those select individuals whose decisions have created freedom of choice: in their careers, purchases, time, etc. Through careful planning, dedication and awareness, independence is possible and leads to happiness; the ultimate human desire!

It was the great philosopher Aristotle (340 B.C.) who originally adopted the belief that the most powerful and compelling objective of every human being is the desire for happiness. I believe, as Aristotle did, that every action you take or decision you make is predicated on the desire to attain a greater sense of happiness. For each action you take to achieve success in any of the five critical areas of mastery described in the Career TEAM philosophy (career, financial, health, relationship, enlightenment), your ultimate reason will be because you crave the need to feel happy. Why do you want a better relationship? Why lose weight? Why attain a certain level of savings? Why start your own business? Why become more spiritual? The outcome is always the same: so you can feel happy and bask in the glow of your achievements.

And attaining happiness is synonymous with continuous growth as a person and the establishment of a solid identity. When you truly commit to improve in each of the 5 areas, you build the foundation of solid character. And like it or not, the fact is that you will attract into your life, the people and opportunities in sync with your most dominant thoughts. Who you decide to become is a direct correlation to how you decide to structure your values and belief systems. Character comes from what you focus on and allow into your mind, what you choose to expose your emotions to and how you react to circumstances. The film director, Spike Lee, said it best, "Do The Right Thing!"

The key to independence and adopting a balanced lifestyle that yields positive results is to get massive leverage behind your purpose or desire. In other words, you need to build a strong emotional tie between the outcome you seek and the effort required to achieve the objective. Said another way, you must clearly establish, "the why behind the want". What was the real reason you decided to invest your time and energy in learning the importance of balance? Is it because you are in pain in one or more of the 5 areas? Are you dissatisfied with being mediocre? Do you seek peace of mind? Whatever your motivation, you need to understand your desired outcome and WHY you seek that outcome. If you can associate enough emotion and positive feelings to the goal, you will achieve it. If not, you will rely solely on hope. Remember, hope is not a strategy!

It is my opinion that 80% of achievement in life is in developing a strong enough ‘why’ - or the psychology behind your ambition. The other 20% is in the mechanics - the actual carrying out of your plan. Also, be aware that if you have a great deal of momentum toward a prior behavior or bad habit, your mind will resist your initial efforts to change this conditioned response.

For example, if you took 20 years to put on weight through poor eating habits, it will take a strong effort to avoid the body’s conditioned response to seek a certain quantity of food. Or if your conditioned habit has been to become non-communicative during an argument with your spouse, and you want to become a good communicator instead of using silence to express your feelings. Your momentum will try to keep you from communicating by pulling you toward a familiar pattern, silence. You must adopt a new philosophy and through positive self talk and leverage (a strong enough justification for fighting through your natural conditioned response if you truly desire to enhance the quality of your relationship. In this example, you can adopt a new conditioned response to conflict, not silence but communication!

Let me close by stating that for me, independence is a function of focusing on personal and professional decisions that create freedom of choice. It is the ability to choose ones lifestyle that makes all the difference...

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YOUR MOST IMPORTANT GOALS MUST BE YOURS (from The Power of Focus) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt
The most important goals must be your own. This sounds obvious. However, a common mistake made by thousands of people across the country is to allow their main goals to be designed by someone else. This could be the company you work for, your industry, your boss, your bank or mortgage company, or your friends and neighbors.

In our workshops, we teach people to ask themselves the question, "What do I really want?" At the end of one of these sessions a man came up to us and said, "I’m a dentist. I only went into this profession because my mother wanted me to. I hated it. One day I drilled through the side of a patient’s mouth and ended up having to pay him $475,000."

Here’s the point: When you let other people or society determine your definition of success, you’re sabotaging your future. So put a stop to that right away.

Decide how to create your definition of success and stop worrying about what the rest of the world thinks. For years, Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, currently the largest and most successful retail store chain in history, enjoyed driving an old Ford pickup truck even though he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. When asked why he didn’t drive a vehicle better suited to his position, he’d reply, "Well, I just like my old truck." So forget about image and set goals right for you.

And by the way, if you really want to drive a luxury car, or live in a beautiful home or create an exciting lifestyle, go for it! Just make sure that it’s what you want, and that you’re doing it for the right reasons.

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DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE! by Lawler Kang
This Fourth of July (in addition to thanking your lucky stars to be living in America!) consider declaring your independence from the tyranny and shackles of living from paycheck to paycheck, particularly if you want to stop merely working a job and find your Life’s Work. Why is this important? Simply put, any kind of career or life transition is immensely easier if you have cash in the bank.

"How is this possible?" you are probably grumbling, "I need every last cent I can get my hands on." Granted, it may seem you need the conviction of our Founding Fathers to pull this off but I can assure you, it is definitely possible and even better, it can be immensely enjoyable! (Believe it or not, recent studies show it is the process of ‘getting there’ -- versus the ‘being there’ -- that makes us happy.)

Three quick suggestions to get you on your way to financial freedom. First, develop a monthly budget that tracks all your costs. You can and should make some assumptions based on prior precedent and estimates – groceries, utilities, clothes, and so on. ‘All’ in this context means every time you open your wallet -- the coffee and bagel you pick up three times a week en route to work, the movies you rent or see, saving for your upcoming vacation or good friend’s wedding.

Second, challenge yourself to reduce your costs by say 15% per month on anything and everything possible and most importantly, saving the difference rather than giving yourself an excuse to go buy that chilled-mocha-hazelnut-frappe sensation that can set you back the equivalent of a week’s worth of wages in other parts of the world. Instead of getting the Max-Grande, subsist on a medium. Bypass the new items and go straight to the sales racks. Call up Geico for a new auto insurance quote. Postpone the trade up restaurant experience and settle for something normal. Blow by Nieman Marcus (Needless Markup) and visit Old Navy. Does your car really need that premium gasoline? (Odds are it doesn’t, by the way).

The final suggestion, which is linked to this notion of saving, is simply to stop wanting. Huh? Stop wanting? What? Stop wanting that BMW, the Omega watch, the Coach purse and the latest trendy sunglass brand. Why? It is in the act of wanting something that unhappiness is born. Do you think if you suddenly had all these accoutrements you would be supremely satisfied? Probably not. You would want more and more and more and would find yourself in an endless cycle of needing to purchase the latest offerings from Materialism, Inc. An obvious question comes twirling out of this vortex of spinning receipts – who is in control here? You or the marketing gurus behind those oh-so-enticing luxury goods? For happiness is rooted in living on your terms, terms that you and only you dictate and control.

Thankfully, implementing the above three steps won’t require you to draft your own Declaration of Independence. This said though, I challenge you to right now type up, print out, copy and plaster around you (your bathroom mirror, your work desk wall, etc.) the following three lines:

1) My budget is my bottom line
2) Reducing what I spend will increase my life
3) Wanting is wonton

Happy Birthday USA!

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ALWAYS TAKE VACATIONS (from How to Become CEO) by Jeffrey J. Fox
The executive who brags she never takes vacations is either a fool or a poor manager. You must be able to establish your department, job, or area of responsibility so it can function smoothly without you. Otherwise, you won’t be able to travel to see customers.

There are several career reasons to take vacations. If you go to the right places you increase your chances of meeting people who have the potential to help you. It is an occasion to observe other ways of life, new fashions and trends, different ways business is done, and literally to broaden your horizons. It is the time to write a book or practice photography or sample the risottos of Tuscany. It is a time to think and plan. And, not unimportantly, a planned vacation forces you to work incredibly hard before you leave and finish lots of work.

Always plan your vacation far in advance. Pick your winter dates a year in advance. Let your superiors know well ahead of time. Never cancel. Never leave a telephone number. Experiment and go to different places. But always go.

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REALITY CHECK (from Making Your Home Senior-Friendly) By Chuck Oakes
Although the focus and content of this information was designed for aging parents, many of the concepts and suggestions could be applied to loved ones of any age with limited abilities.

The only constant in life is change! Life changes can be traumatic and difficult. Change of career, jobs, death of a loved one, serious medical problems, and accidents can have serious consequences on one’s plan for the future. As technology improves and lifespans increase due to improved health care and medical breakthroughs, we are faced with the reality that there is no escaping that "aging is what’s happening!"

Give your parents the space and dignity to be themselves! They are valued: they have ideas, perceptions and preferences, even if their capabilities and faculties are somewhat diminished. Be patient with them. I have found that I sometimes respond and react to them as if they were much younger, they are not. While this may seem rather insensitive, you have to be mindful of the reality of the moment. Let’s not confuse mental with physical impairments. Chances are that they are more frustrated than you are with their disabilities and aging bodies. Give them time, patience, respect, and the courtesy they deserve. With the space and respect they deserve, allow them "veto power" over the new ideas and recommendations you may offer.

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BE DRIVEN by John Cyr
I am a collector of quotes and this one recently came to my attention as I was focusing on Independence Day this month. "There is often as much independence in not being led, as in not being driven."

If you take a few moments to really ponder this bit of 19th century wisdom by Tyron Edwards, you may come to the profound understanding I did as to the importance of being a driven person. Consider this: some of us spend so much time and effort in complaining about our bosses at work, our work assignment, and the daily duties of our jobs. We want to be free (we think) of our supervisor’s demands at work when in reality if we were driven there would be little need for supervisors to be demanding. This is true of us as children with our parents, in our roles as spouses, as partners in business, and as students in school.

What it means to me is that there really is no independence at all. We are either servants to others dictates, wishes, plans and so on; or servants to our own self-disciplined, driven dictates, wishes, and plans. Which led me to one of Stephen Covey’s seven habits which states: "Act or be acted upon", and another quip I have been hearing lately: "if you are not living your plan, you are living someone else’s for you". There is no independence, there is only energy. The void will be filled with yours or someone else’s. Life will go on. Plans will be made and completed. Whatever you lack will be replaced by someone else’s. I am sure if you try this experiment, you will see what I mean. Stay home from work one day and watch how unplanned activities take over your day. They will arrive like weeds in a garden. Independence? I don’t think so. Just displaced energy. It is easy to see in the little seemingly non-important events of a day. But the big picture of life is often lost through subtlety. Life is made up of all those accumulated moments in time and how you used them. Will we arrive at the dusk of our lives feeling empty because we were not the drivers of our own vehicle, or will we feel content that we have accomplished things? It all has to do with if you are "driven", or not.

Here is another way to look at it. Life is going to happen anyway, you might as well choose to live it the right way. Work is going to get done; you might as well spend your energy in doing it. Haven’t you noticed it takes as much energy to fight it anyway? I watched with amazement one week how much a welfare recipient client of mine had to do in order to keep those government checks coming. It was incredible. There were hosts of forms to fill out, reporting to do, and requirements to fill. I remember thinking at the time, "If he could put this much energy into working for a living he would be moderately wealthy by now".

Here is another quote that fits nicely; "There is no such thing as free anything". Everything has a price. So does not being driven. I think what Tyron Edwards’ quote really means for us is that it is our choice in life how we will spend it. Will we lead or will we allow ourselves to be led? There is just as much energy in both. Here is the reward though if you are driven. You might actually find wealth, or happiness, or love, or the things you set out to accomplish. That is the pleasant by-product of being a driven person. You just might save a few souls along the way as well if they follow your drive. My motto this Independence Day is - Be driven. It’s the best way to live! You might even enjoy the ride.

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THE FLIP SIDE
Each month "The Flip Side" will feature a fun or anecdotal idea, a tasty recipe, a student success story or some other human-interest piece. This month: Something for your mind.

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - that is to have succeeded. By Ralph Waldo Emerson

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DID YOU KNOW?

• 93% of all greeting cards are purchased by women.
• About 85% of product warning labels on household products are inadequate.
• Approximately 10.5 gallons of water is used in a dishwasher. Washing the dishes by hand can use up to 20 gallons of water.
• A Connecticut toy maker, Herobuilders, sells action figures of President George W. Bush, Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which are all major figures tied to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks.
• In 1949 UNICEF produced the first charity Christmas card. The picture shown on the card was painted by a seven year old girl.
• 18% of an Americans income is spent on transportation.
• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
• Americans write approximately 50 billion checks a year making it the second most frequent payment method used after cash.
• Approximately 40% of the U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit by the end of the Civil War.
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