Education 100

Motivation for Lasting Change

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

If you are like many people, knowing that you may live to 100 could give you the motivation to make lasting changes to your life today, so you can enjoy those changes for decades. Think about it, how many times have you said Happy New Year to family, friends and coworkers with the intention of making those changes? How many times have you made promises to yourself on your birthday? Most of us know the things we need to do and the things we need to change. The question is why don’t we follow through?

To ensure that this is your best year ever, there may be some things that you need to change and you probably already know what they are. Are they the same things you were thinking about last year? This time, let’s make these changes your new lifestyle.

To make changes that last, you will need to consciously decide what your primary motivation is. Will you be crisis motivated or quality of life motivated?

Crisis motivation is caused by pain or suffering that has become so bad it forces you to take action. Crisis motivators include a health scare such as a heart attack, herniated disc or being diagnosed with a disease. Crisis motivation can also come from not being able to wear your clothes because they don’t fit anymore. Divorce, bankruptcy and a job lay-off are also crisis motivators that may get you moving and motivate you to make the changes that are inevitable. Crisis motivation may force you to do something different and make a change, but unless you actually choose a new path consciously, it will not lead to lasting change.

Quality of life motivation is about choosing a compelling future that is exciting to you. Quality of life motivation is inspired by the desire to live your best life today and every day. Think about what you want and the kind of life you want to live.

Do you want to be healthy? Do you want a healthy relationship? Do you want to perform well at work or in sports? Do you want to use your talents every day. What causes matter to you? What type of people do you want to spend time with? How do you want to be treated?

Quality of life motivation will lead you from survival to a life where you are thriving and living your ideal 100 Year Lifestyle.

Too many people live from one crisis to another crisis and never make the critical transition to the quality of life they truly want and deserve. We see this in patients who return year after year with the same condition only its more chronic and has more deterioration. How many years will you let pass by before you make your health a priority and make quality of life your primary motivator?

People that have made the critical transition from crisis care to lifestyle care are enjoying a much healthier quality of life and are optimizing their potential with their choices. They make healthy eating a lifestyle. They make being fit a lifestyle. They make healthy posture a lifestyle. Head off the next inevitable crisis. Let your quality of life motivate make your best life last to 100 and beyond!

Success Tips From A True Champion

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

I was never a great basketball player, but I seemed to have a knack for teaching and have always been able to steadily improve that ability. Being in the classroom with 30 young minds is a tremendous experience for me. One of the sayings I have is “You can con a con and you can fool a fool, but you can never kid a kid.” Don’t even try because they’ll catch you and you may never be able to regain their trust, which is essential if you’re going to be a coach, a teacher, or any kind of a leader.

It’s really easy to fool yourself. It’s even possible to fool the people you work for. It’s more difficult to fool the people you work with. And it’s almost impossible to fool the people whom you are responsible for. Whatever line of work you’re in, lead with integrity. Practice what you preach and have a sense of spirituality in your life. It will add depth and meaning to your beliefs and help you stand strong in the face of adversity.

Integrity: Proven to be the TOP trait of today’s most prosperous people.

With that in mind, you’d better be planned, practiced, and prepared to lead your team toward its objectives. By way of preparation, I’ve always been a list guy. I like to put my plans down on paper, what I want to do that day as well as what I want to do next week and maybe even for the rest of my life. This helps me focus, and the fact that the goals are in writing motivates me to make them become realities.

Good coaches and teachers realize that they don’t know everything, that they can learn a lot from the people they’re teaching, and that they should never stop learning. They understand that it’s essential to communicate and that the greatest communication skill a person can develop is a skill of listening.

Listening is your greatest skill. Back in my coaching days, I always met individually with my players for at least 10 or 15 minutes a week, whether it was in the gym, after practice, or on the way to the airport or somewhere. I would just try to get to know them a little better and make sure they were on top of their situations, in class, on the court, and in life in general. Each player has his own problems and his own unique challenges, and good coaches recognize that each player is an individual.

Each year I gave my assistants and my players an opportunity to come into my office and talk to me about what they think. I would say, “Tell me whatever you think I can do to help you become a better player or a better coach.” I told them they could say anything they want to me. I asked them what motivates them, what they like and dislike. I really believe that the true essence of coaching is, if I can find the button that turns you on and motivates you to the nth degree, you can reach the maximum and be the best that you can be.

Discover the button within you that motivates a new standard of excellence.

I gave my players daily doses of motivation. “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard.” At times, a coach and teacher must be a disciplinarian. It can be hard for some people to do. I believe that players want to be disciplined, they want to be loved, and discipline is a form of love. Discipline is what you do for somebody, not tosomebody. Players can become bitter, or they can become better. That’s their choice. I really believe in my heart that players want to be taught. They want to be coached; they want to learn. They want to be in an environment where they have an authority figure. And my goal in dealing with my players was to be a model and not a critic.

In trying to learn about others and how to motivate them, I’ve discovered the importance of learning about yourself. I found that one way to learn about yourself is by reading from a wide variety of sources. I’m a keeper of everything, a real packrat when it comes to written materials. I call it being “a holy tearer” (as opposed to terror!). Â I’m always clipping articles and quotations that say something impactful to me.

I try to stay fresh and up to date on what’s happening. I’m constantly reading and jotting things down in a notebook, keeping files on attitudes, leadership, and other topics. Paper and pencils are always at hand. Beside my desk, in my car, beside my nightstand. I wake up in the middle of the night, write something down, and go back to sleep. My collection works double-duty. If it inspires and motivates me, there’s a good chance I’ll use it to inspire others.

As a coach, I also had to coach my assistants. During the season, I would watch four game films a week: our two most recent games so I could find areas where I could find improvement, and footage of our next two opponents so I could help my team prepare for them. My assistants would help out by watching film of future opponents and evaluating them. Then, of course, we shared the information with the team because shared information is essential to any successful organization.

It’s amazing how often you can pick up something useful, maybe even learn what not to do, which on the surface is totally unrelated to what you do. For example, I might find some useful quotation from a magazine on selling. Well, I was a salesman in some ways; that was a part of the job. As a former recruiter, I sold UCLA and its basketball program to potential student athletes. You’ve probably noticed that sports quotations are often used as motivational tools by salespeople and other people in the business world. It’s all related. Sports mirrors business, and we’re all in some kind of business. We’re all salespeople to some extent.

People tell me I’m an organized, patterned kind of guy. I’ve always liked to have a list of things to do. As a coach, I hope I’d never left any stone unturned. I saw my work as never done. You see, the more you prepare and learn, the more you can teach. I started this practice of writing everything down when I was a head coach in high school. I discovered that often things flash through your mind, and if you don’t record them, you forget about them. With any practice like this, there’s more than one method you can use. I just keep little notes all over the place. My three sons, on the other hand, all carry and use those Franklin Planners. Your method isn’t nearly as important as the fact that you’re using something to stay organized and in control of your life.

When I first became a coach back in 1964, I went to every clinic I could go to, six or seven a year. And I still have every note I’ve ever taken from every clinic I’ve attended. I have files and files of information from the legendary Coach John Wooden and other sources. I still refer to these sources frequently because repetition is the greatest teacher you have.

The greatest learning experience I’ve ever had has been learning about people. Once I came to California though, I really started growing as a person because I came into contact with so much more diversity and started learning more about people. The more you learn about people, the more you adjust and grow and develop yourself as a person, and the more influential you can be as a teacher and a leader.

Teamwork is the ability to function together as a unit toward the achievement of a common goal. It makes effective use of people with diverse skills that complement one another. I would need my passers and shooters and rebounders and shot blockers, my strength and my speed. Your company is also made up of diverse people with skills that blend together to make your company what it is. You may have manufacturing and marketing and sales and distribution and customer service for example. Only by blending those varied skills together into an effective unit can your team be successful.

One of the important things to remember in putting your team together whether it’s in recruiting, hiring, or putting together a special-project team is that you don’t necessarily go with the five best players as individuals. You want the five players who together make the best team. That’s chemistry. They work well together, and they make things happen.

My friend Denis Waitley, with whom I’ve shared the stage, has studied winners from all walks of life, from Olympic athletes to NASA astronauts to Fortune 500 executives. He has pointed out that there are five intangible characteristics of any winning team. One is shared vision. The individual team members strive in a unified direction because they have goals that are clearly defined. They are in agreement that the goals are worthy and they want to accomplish them.

Another characteristic is empathy or understanding and identification with one another. Through the learning process, the team members have come to understand how their actions affect one another and how they must work together to accomplish their objectives. Then there’s synergy, which is an exciting one. Synergy is when the whole of a unit is more powerful than the sum of its individual parts. That has a lot to do with chemistry. We’ve all seen teams in which individuals were not necessarily outstanding, but as a unit, they really seem to gel and could accomplish great things. Obviously there’s trust among the team members in terms of their abilities and their motivations.

And finally, you have enjoyment, which is something a lot of people overlook. I’m a firm believer that work should be both productive and fun. When you accomplish something together as a team, the feeling you get is indescribable. It’s wonderful. It’s exhilarating. Obviously you have a lot more fun when you’re successful. I never failed to go on to the floor for a game without saying, “Let’s have fun.”

Put these things together, and you have the blueprint for a championship team, either on the court or in your business.

Reprinted with permission of Nightingale-Conant Corporation www.nightingale.com

Contributed by Jim Harrick

Difficulties Lead To Positive Change

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

Does “desirable difficulties” seem like an impossible combination to you? Is it an oxymoron — words that combine contradictory terms? We recognize an oxymoron in terms like: living dead, organized mess, alone in a crowd, jumbo shrimp, hot ice, cruel kindness, plastic glasses, pretty ugly, a just war, or a real phony. You get the idea. But what about “desirable difficulties”?

One of the greatest insights in the last 20 years regarding learning has been psychologist Robert Bjork’s concept of “desirable difficulties.” His research shows there are many times when difficulties lead to extraordinary success. Here are some examples:

Robin Williams saw words upside down and backwards. When other kids in school think you’re an idiot, you try to do funny things to create some social esteem.
Chris Gardner’s wife leaves him, he loses his house, his bank account, and credit cards, lives on the streets with his son, and ends up as a super-successful stockbroker.
As a child, Harrison Ford was targeted by bullies. As a poor student, he signed up for drama class, hoping for an easy good grade.

Do you have a “desirable difficulty” that will lead you to greater achievements?

Bjork has shown that introducing certain difficulties into the learning process can greatly improve long-term retention of the learned material. And he adds, “We often seek to eliminate difficulties in learning, to our own detriment.” What do you think? Would you purposely add difficulty to your learning process?

In the new book David and Goliath, author Malcolm Gladwell says we’ve been misled in how we view “disadvantages.” Conventional wisdom tells us that a difficulty is something to be avoided — that it is a setback that leaves you worse off than you would be otherwise.

But people with dyslexia grow up to be the Richard Bransons and Thomas Edisons of the world. David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue, has publicly acknowledged his ADHD and has chosen not to take medication for it. Instead he has learned how to use his “unique brain wiring” to his advantage, now that he better understands it.

Gladwell goes on to say that, yes, people are sometimes ruined by poverty and other economic challenges. However, people are also often “ruined by wealth because they lose their ambition, and they lose their pride, and they lose their sense of self-worth.”

Do you perhaps have a “desirable difficulty” in your current or past circumstances? Something that you’ve tried to eliminate?

Could it be the seed for opening the door to your greatest successes?

What do you tell people when you first meet them? Like anyone else, I can tell my life story as a healthy version or a victim version. In Dream Job, I tell a little of my own story — and like most people, my story can be framed by the “limitations” or the “desirable difficulties.”

I grew up in a home where we didn’t even have running water until I was in the 8th grade. I knew nothing but poverty. As a five-year-old, I was forced to get up at 5:30 a.m. to do my share of the farming chores — milking cows and throwing hay bales. Most Christmases I got a new pair of blue jeans — my one pair for the coming year. I was not allowed to wear neckties or fancy clothes. Because of my parents’ legalistic religious beliefs, I was not allowed to go to movies, dances, or sporting events. Our home was rigid and somber — little laughter. I received zero in financial help for college from my parents. I hated the cold weather in Ohio. Obviously, my chances for any success were limited. If only I had been born into a family with more opportunity, or so I thought.

In my family, we learned how to make good use of everything — nothing was wasted. We grew our own food, and I created toys from things other families discarded. As a small boy, I had the opportunity to experience real work and to begin my commitment to work that was meaningful — and profitable. With no TV or radio in our house, I became an avid reader and listener of the Nightingale-Conant programs, which opened me up to a wealth of wisdom and knowledge that serves me well still today.

Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret had a profound impact on me — helping me believe as a 13-year-old farm kid that my thinking would shape the direction of my life. I worked right through my college years and valued the education I was paying for myself. My father’s devotion to his religious views prompted me to deep study to formulate beliefs I could be equally committed to. Today I value the work ethic and the uncompromising integrity I learned in that strict Amish/Mennonite environment. As my own man, I wore neckties until I came to my own realization that there was more than legalism to provide a reason for not wearing the silly things. The creativity and ingenuity I experienced as a child has served me in a thousand ways in helping me “see” opportunities others miss.

Both of those versions of my life are equally true. If you’d just met me, which of those stories would make you want to get to know me more? Which one do you think makes me more confident and happier and gives me more energy today?

What is your story? Even if you lost your job, your dog died, you’ve got heartburn, and they repossessed the truck – what story do you want to be replaying in your mind to move to a higher level of success? What picture are you presenting to others? If you’re telling yourself an unhealthy story of your life, it will perpetuate the same reality. Creating a healthy story could change the way you see your life — and the way others see and respond to you.

Perhaps those things you saw as “disadvantages” were simply “desirable difficulties.”

The stories of people overcoming difficulties are endless. Aron Ralston survived a climbing accident, which ended with his amputating his own right arm. He now has a bestselling book and a movie and is in high demand as a motivational speaker. Bethany Hamilton survived a shark attack but had her left arm bitten off. She has written two books, was featured in the movie Soul Surfer, and has been a guest onGood Morning America, The Tonight Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. While we would never wish this kind of difficulty on ourselves or others, why is it that challenges often seem to springboard someone past those living a normal, difficulty-free life?

Even as I write this, I’m confused by the seeming contradictoriness of it all. As a parent, I don’t want my children to experience difficulty, I don’t want my wife to suffer in any way, and as a career coach, I want to help people build lives of success and prosperity.

So how are you handling the “desirable difficulties” in your life? Are you avoiding them at all costs, seeing them as a waiting pattern until life gets better, and wishing you had a life with no stress or hardship? Or have you found the value, the surge of power, the new insights, the profound desire — that could only have shown up with the difficulty?

Leverage your hardships to find the high-paying work you love.

As you learn from and grow with your own “desirable difficulties,” you’ll discover:

How to frame your difficulties into your greatest assets
Why you can stop worrying that age is a barrier to finding or forging a new career path
Where to find the opportunities for meaningful work that are perfect for YOU
Why your college major is an insignificant issue in today’s marketplace
How to make yourself stand out in a sea of candidates
The single best way to safeguard yourself from corporate politics and unexpected layoffs
How to evaluate the broad spectrum of work models today — employee, independent contractor, contingency worker, freelancer, consultant, entrepreneur, and more

Whatever point you’re at on the road to your “dream work,” and whatever that work looks like, you’ll now gain the inspiration, motivation, and how-to information you need to move quickly and confidently in the direction of your dreams, embracing your “desirable difficulties” and discovering the unexpected success that awaits you!

Reprinted with permission from Nightingale-Conant Corporation www.nightingale.com

Contributed by Dan Miller

The Value of Goals and Purpose

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

The more we learn about people and why they do the things they do, the more we realize the vital importance of having goals as well as a purpose in life.

I was reading a paper that had been presented at a psychological conference by Sydney M. Girard at the University of Florida in which he says, “I believe we’ll find that a man who pursues inspiriting goals,” by this he means the sort of goals that inspire us and fill us with some intense desire for their accomplishment, “actualizes his potentials and resists illness more effectively than people who have not found or who have lost their identity and direction.”

In another place he points out that “There is ample reason to suspect that people fall ill with physical or psychiatric symptoms because their past way of life not only has failed to inspirit them, sustain wellness and also happiness, but the present and future seem to the person to be devoid of hope or meaning or worthwhile purpose.”

Purpose-filled goals ward off disease, build confidence, and attract prosperity.

It’s been written that the inmates of German concentration camps, surrounded by bestial torture, constant hunger, filth, and the daily specter of death, who could find meaning in their suffering and who had a purpose for living survived incredible stress. Medical and nursing lore bristles with unsystematic accounts of patients who had miraculous recoveries from supposedly terminal illness when someone inspired hope and a purpose for ongoing life. Freud lasted 15 or 20 years with a terrible mouth cancer. Perhaps because he hadn’t finished what he started. He had a mission to complete. We also know that people become well when they’ve been treated by methods in which they have faith.

Now, it’s obvious then that if we can help a person to acquire an attitude, goal, or purpose that so affects the person that his or her entire being becomes reintegrated, the person becomes filled with a desire, the actual image of which fosters further growth and learning and gives him or her maximum resistance to infection, to germs, and to psychosis.

It was found in one study that almost all the patients admitted to a general hospital with organic illness during a one-month period had sustained some emotional crisis involving object relations shortly before the onset of their physical symptoms. Another researcher sites evidence strongly suggestive that dispiriting events that induce hopelessness are factors in the onset of ulcerative colitis.

Now this means that if we treasure health, physical and mental, we must make certain that we’re daily striving toward a goal, a fine purpose worthy of us, one that fills us with excitement and energy. We also have to learn the value of being ourselves, of finding ourselves, and of following the purpose we have independently decided upon for ourselves.

All of this shows how vitally important it is for each of us to choose a destination we feel worthy of us, to stop imitating the values of others and find our own and find ourselves.

Can you list your values right now?

Who is teaching you?

Every person should ask himself or herself, Who were my teachers and what were their qualifications? If we depended upon learning only from our parents, the world would never move forward another inch. The person who has wise and understanding parents is among the luckiest people on earth. We can’t choose our parent, and being parents does not at the same time confer upon a man or woman great wisdom, kindness, understanding, and knowledge. And from our teachers, we learned their specialties, or hoped we did. If we were fortunate enough to have had a great teacher who also inspired and led us, so much the better.

But if people are really wise, they will undertake their education on their own, as their own private responsibility. They will learn all they can from those who have been appointed to teach them, their parents and their teachers. But they will make their education a lifelong job, and they will carefully choose those whose knowledge they want to make their own.

Socrates said, “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” There are several tons of wisdom in that remark. When it comes to living successfully, turn to those who have demonstrated by their own lives or by the durability of what they have said that they knew what they were talking about.

When I was a youngster, I lived in a neighborhood surrounded by several neighborhoods marked by poverty. The people by whom I was surrounded had very little, if anything. They were people who had, as a rule, very limited educations. They were not a reading people. But despite the poverty of their lives and the poverty of their education, they would give advice on any subject under the sun. I can’t remember hearing anyone in our neighborhood ever saying “I don’t know.”

They would give you advice on every subject you might bring up, and they would give you advice even if you didn’t ask for it. It seemed that they knew everything under the sun, except how to conduct their own lives in a successful manner. And the trouble with them was that they had learned what they knew and thought to be true from people like themselves, people with the wrong answers. They were good people, they meant well, but they were making the same mistakes human beings had been making for centuries. What mistakes they had not learned as children, they learned by trial and error. They had not checked the qualifications of those who had taught them.

Moreover, they had to find some justification to the poverty of their lives. They had to excuse themselves or their wives and children for their failure. And to do this they related old myths and old wives’ tales or made up reasons of their own that they passed along to the children. And the children, hearing these things from their parents, had no choice but to believe them. And so they learned and practiced the mistakes made by their parents and their parents’ parents and so on. Make your education your own business, and learn from those who have proved their qualifications to teach.

Longfellow wrote, “Lives of great men all remind us/We can make our lives sublime/And, departing, leave behind us/Footprints on the sands of time.”

Reprinted with permission by Nightingale-Conant Corporation www.nightingale.com

Challenging and Changing Our Beliefs

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Barbara Plasker Leave a Comment

What would it take to suspend your belief in what you know for sure to be able to see for yourself whether other ways of thinking are true, as well? In what ways have you been able to change your beliefs?

The impairment of a closed mind

Imagine a land with 2 territories: one only has a Day-Sky where the sun plays peek-a-boo with the clouds, the second territory has only a Night-Sky where the moon and stars are in a field of darkness all the time. Your territory, Day-Sky is all you know.

One day a stranger visits your territory and spends some time with you. He tells you of another territory where the sky is dark and filled with bright pinpricks of light called stars and a circular moon that repeatedly changes its shape. You laugh! Ridiculous, you say. I know what is in the sky. I see it every day. None of the wise ones I’ve been around all my life have spoken of this land of the Night-Sky. None of our books describe such a place. I don’t believe you.

“Come with me and I’ll show you”, says the visitor.

“Why would I waste my time?” you say. “Seeing is believing. I know what is true, just look up. There’s the sky.”

My guess is that someone who has spent her life in the Night-Sky territory would have the same reaction.

The problem is that we live in a world of many different and opposing beliefs but in our minds we think our beliefs are the only truth. And as in the example above, we are right and those whose beliefs are different are wrong. Instead of acknowledging the others right to their beliefs, some of us condemn the other and fail to broaden our view of the world.

I’ve come across many examples of people who have recently and dramatically changed their beliefs and this is how they did it, they:

questioned whether they were conditioned by their teachers and the limited exposure they’d had to only one ideology
acknowledged that they might learn something of value by examining their beliefs and where they came from
became willing to discover the others’ point of view in depth and opened their mind
were prepared with a set of questions that would help them understand the basis for their beliefs and the beliefs of others
used critical thinking skills to evaluate what they learned

How would our world be different if everyone realized the truth of this quote attributed to Thomas Dewar and others: “The mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open”?

Here are a couple of recent examples from the Internet of people who have changed their beliefs:

Muslim supports Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL8hgPuSgVQ

Hate2Hope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh5thCKmFxU

Why I left white nationalism http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/why-i-left-white-nationalism.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Dr. Barbara Plasker is a Certified Professional Coach, founder of It’s Never Too Late to Bloom! and the author of Simple Ways to Transform Your Life: Lessons Learned by a Late Bloomer. With over 40 years of experience teaching and counseling well over a thousand people one on one, Dr. Barbara helps her clients rediscover their life purpose and live the life they were meant to live.

Contact information:

Phone/Text: 845-558-6099

Email: info@barbaraplasker.com

Website: www.barbaraplasker.com

Facebook: https://bit.ly/2J5WeAt

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2J7PwtI

Increase Your Planning Skills

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something while maintaining the ability to stay focused on the long-term goal. The potential consequences of any task or activity are the key determinants of how important it really is to you and to your company. This way of evaluating the significance of a task is how you determine what your next priority really is.

Stop Procrastinating and Stay Focused.

This law says, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”

Maximize your time, performance, and wealth.

When you run out of time and the consequences for non-completion of a key task or project can be really serious, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. When you have no choice, when the consequences for non-completion are serious enough, you start early, you stay focused, and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the unpleasantness that would follow if you didn’t get it completed within the time limit.

Rule: “There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do.”

It has been estimated that the average person in business today, especially managers in the age of cutbacks, is working at 110 % to 130 % of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. Everyone has stacks of reading material he or she still has to go through. One study concluded recently that the average executive has 300-400 hours of reading and projects backlogged at home and at the office.

What this means is that you will never be caught up, and planning skills are more crucial than ever. All you can hope for is to stay focused and be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.

Deadlines Are an Excuse.

Many people say that they work better under the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, years of research indicate that this is seldom true.

It is much better to better your planning skills, and then build in a sizable buffer to compensate for unexpected delays and diversions. However much time you think a task will take, add on another 20% or more, or make a game of getting it done well in advance of the deadline. You will be amazed at how much more relaxed you are, and how much better a job you do when you stop procrastinating.

Increase Your Planning Skills.

There are three questions that you can use on a regular basis to help you stay focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule. The first question is “What are my highest-value activities?”

This is one of the most important questions you can ask and answer. What are your highest-value activities? First, think this through for yourself. Then, ask your boss. Ask your co-workers and subordinates. Ask your friends and family. Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be crystal clear about your highest-value activities before you begin work.

The second question you can ask continually is “What can I, and only I, do, that, if done well, will make a real difference?”

This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. It is one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you, and only you, do, that if done well, can make a real difference?

Every hour of every day, you can ask yourself this question and there will be a specific answer. Your job is to use planning skills to be clear about the answer and then to start to work on this task before anything else.

The third question you can ask is “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”

This is the core question of time management. Answering this question correctly is the key to stop procrastinating and to develop better planning skills. Every hour of every day, there is some task that is the most valuable use of your time at that moment. Your job is to ask yourself this question, over and over again, and to always be working on the answer to it, whatever it is.

Do first things first and second things not at all. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”

The more accurate your answers to these questions, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities, to stop procrastinating, and to get started on that one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time.

Make a List and Stay Focused on Priorities for Effective Time Management.

When you hit a crunch point, your ability to stay focused and concentrate can make all the difference between success and failure. You cannot do everything, so an effective way for you to complete your most important tasks is to make a list. Effective time management is essential to getting through your busy schedule.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, ‘‘The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.’’ Stephen Covey said, ‘‘The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.’’ There is a rule that says that every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. Make a list before you start, to ensure that when you do begin work, you will stay focused on that activity that can have the greatest possible consequences for yourself and your business.

Refuse to ‘‘major in minors.’’ Keep asking yourself, ‘‘What’s really important here?’’ Your ability to ask and answer this question will keep you on track and staying focused throughout the day.

Think on Paper.

To stay focused on your top priorities, there are a series of steps you can take for effective time management. First of all, think on paper. Writing things down is absolutely essential for you to be able to take control of the situation during the emergency or crisis. Before you take any action, make a list of everything that you have to do to solve the problem and get through the crunch.

In A.D. 1342, the philosopher William of Occam developed a concept that has come to be known as Occam’s razor. This principle says that, in dealing with any problem or complex issue, the simplest and most direct explanation or solution is usually the correct one. What this means is that you should refuse to allow yourself to become overwhelmed with trivia and detail. Stay focused, and start off by trying the simplest possible solution.

Make a List.

At the beginning of your day, make a list of everything that you have to do during that day. Go over the list and number the top seven items. Ask yourself, ‘‘If I could do only one thing on this list today, which one task would it be?’’ Put a ‘‘1’’ next to that task or activity. Repeat this exercise until you have your major tasks organized from one to seven to help you stay focused throughout your day.

Then, discipline yourself to start immediately on your number one task and to work at it with single-minded concentration until it is complete. Refuse to do anything else but that one thing. If you are called away or distracted, immediately return to that task, like a gyroscope returns to center, and begin working on it again. Invariably, this one task can have the greatest potential consequences in your job or situation.

Practice Triage and Stay Focused.

For effective time management, use the triage method. This method was developed by the French army in World War I. When the dressing stations behind the lines were swamped with far too many wounded soldiers for the doctors and nurses to treat, they solved the problem by dividing the wounded into three groups. The first were those who would die, no matter how much treatment they received. They were put aside and made comfortable.

The second group included those who had only light wounds. They would survive whether they got immediate treatment or not. They also were put aside. The third group consisted of those soldiers who would survive only if they were treated immediately. This is where the doctors and nurses focused their attention.

In your business you should apply triage as well. Stay focused on the problems that can be solved if you act immediately. Refuse to worry about situations that cannot be resolved. Let them go. And don’t waste time on situations that will take care of themselves whether you do anything or not. Stay focused on the problems, decisions, and activities where immediate action is essential to saving the situation.

Develop Effective Time Management Skills to Stay on Track.

During crunch time, keep asking yourself key questions: What is really important in this situation? Of all the things I could do, if I could do only one thing, what would it be? What does this situation need of me that only I can contribute?

Here are the two best questions to keep you on track. The first is ‘‘What can I, and only I, do that, if done well, will make a real difference?’’ The second question, which you must ask and answer over and over again, is ‘‘What is the most valuable use of my time right now?’’

Whatever your answers to these questions, discipline yourself to work on that priority, and only that, until it is complete. When you stay focused and concentrate on your highest priorities, you become more productive and effective in helping yourself and your business out of the crisis.

Reprinted by Permission Nightingale-Conant Corporation

Why Posture Matters

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

Did you know that your posture today can determine your future success in business, your day-to-day energy levels and how fast you age? Over the course of life, many of us can recall receiving posture reminders such as these:

A parent or grandparent admonishes, “Raise your chin up and quit slouching!”

A teacher demands, “Sit up straight in your chair!”

A drill sergeant commands, “Hold your shoulders back and chest out!”

A dance instructor reminds, “Find your center!”

Since most adults no longer have someone nearby to dole out daily reminders, how does following – or not following – the instructions we grew up hearing early in life affect us in the coming years?

Success in the Business World

Harvard Business School recently distributed an article entitled, “The Power of Posture” stating that your stance, broadly speaking, signals to the world how energetic, confident, and powerful you are. Slumped shoulders, a slow pace, and a sagging belly are taken by the world to mean that you lack confidence, that you don’t have much energy, and that you are probably less important, successful, and powerful as a result. These impressions may be neither accurate nor fair, but they are the inevitable results of the fleeting impressions. Prior to your next meeting, take a couple of minutes to “power pose” by standing with your feet apart, hands on your hips, and breathe deep while you visualize a successful outcome to the meeting.

Depression and Energy

In the journal Biofeedback, a study found that simply choosing to alter body posture to a more upright position can improve mood and energy levels. The subjects walked down a hallway in a slouched position and then skipped down the hallway.

The whole group reported slouched walking decreased energy levels while skipping increased energy. The participants were also asked to rate their general depression levels. Those generally more depressed noted far lower energy levels after slouched walking than those who were generally not experiencing depression.

Rather than slouching, consciously bringing yourself upright can relieve dis-ease, low mood, and increase energy throughout the day. Try the 50/10 rule if you sit a lot at work. For every 50 minutes you sit, get up and move around for 10 minutes. Walk the halls with a colleague while discussing a project, take the stairs outside for a quick breath of fresh air or stand up and stretch while completing your calls at your desk.

Aging and Independence

Did you know that your posture can predict your future risk of disability? According to a Japanese study just published in Journals of Gerontology Series A the shape of a person’s spinal column may be an indicator of their need for home assistance later in life. If you knew you could do something now to change things down the road, would you do it? No one wants to require help with bathing, feeding, dressing, going to the bathroom and other simple activities of daily living later in life.

To check your posture or the posture of a loved one, take our simple Posture Test. If you mark ‘yes’ to any of the questions, it’s time to get your spine and nervous system checked for imbalances, known as subluxations, whether you feel them or not. Contact us today to schedule an appointment for yourself or someone you know.

The evidence is clear: If you want to live an active, healthy, long life, your ideal 100 Year Lifestyle, you’ve got to have a healthy spine and nervous system. Place your success, energy and independence at the top of your list by making your posture a high priority.

Sitting Solutions

April 25, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

The Bottom Line On Sitting

Millions of people working from their homes and offices are spending way too much time in their chairs. This is a habit that can lead to more than just a numb bum, especially when you consider your longevity.

Too much sitting sets you up for a host of physical problems including poor circulation, chronic back and nerve pain, depression, osteoporosis, swollen spinal disks, fatigue and many other health problems. In fact, according to Health Day News, Canadian researchers found that prolonged daily sitting could cause these problems even if you exercise regularly.

Stand Up for Yourself

According to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, the U.S. will spend $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years treating a wide range of debilitating ailments resulting from sedentary lifestyle such as diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, certain cancers, and even sexual dysfunction. They’ve even coined their own term, Sedentary Death Syndrome (SeDS), as a growing life-threatening risk for many unsuspecting Americans.

No need to worry though. You can stand strong with these Sitting Solutions:

– 50/10 RULE: Don’t sit for more than 50 minutes. Set a timer and take 10 when it rings.

– BE A SWINGER: Stand with hands on your hips and legs slightly more than shoulder width apart. Rotate your hips clockwise in a full range of motion ten times and then reverse it. Stand sideways next to your desk. Put all your weight on your right leg and gently swing your left leg forwards and backwards 10 times. Repeat with other leg.

– DON’T BE A CROOKED SITTER OR SLOUCHER: Sit up straight. If you find this difficult, uncomfortable or painful, your spine may have a misalignment with nerve pressure, a subluxation, which your chiropractor can help you correct.

– TAKE YOUR LUNCH BREAK: Get up and go somewhere even if you bring something in.

– GO MOBILE: Attach a portable unit to your stationary phone or use a cell.

– HOLD “MEETINGS ON THE MOVE”: Meet clients on a hiking trail or outdoors.

– PUT A LUMBAR PILLOW IN YOUR CHAIR

– INVEST IN AN ERGONOMIC CHAIR

– STAND UP AND SURF: Raise your workstation or monitor so you can net surf and type while standing.

– GO TO THE GYM – BUT STAY OFF THE STATIONARY BIKE

Take Care of Your Spine

Sitting is as bad for the spine sugar as sugar is to the teeth except you can’t replace your spine after it rots away. Chiropractic Lifestyle Care provides gentle adjustments to the spine that can eliminate pain and improve your health. You can find a provider at www.100yearlifestyle.com

These Sitting Solutions will improve your health and quality of life dramatically!

The 100 Year Lifestyle Defined

April 21, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

There is a longevity crisis in the making as 100 year old people are one of the worlds fastest growing groups. The current generation of seniors and super seniors were blindsided by their extended life.

While many of them are suffering, many others are living with joy, passion and activity. Nearly every system from health care and medication usage to retirement and finances were established for a life expectancy of 65 to 75 years. Adjusting the actuary tables is necessary but it is not the solution for you and your loved ones. All of these systems are busting at the seams. It’s time for ANLOT, A New Level of Thinking!

Einstein said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”. This definitely holds true for longevity.

When you see the number of assisted living and Alzheimers care centers popping up in every city, you realize that living to 80, 90, 100 and beyond has become the norm. Thinking differently about your longevity is vital. Living differently beginning today is even more important.

You will be faced with choices every day that support your quality of life today and as you age. What should you say yes to? What should you say no to? Defining what The 100 Year Lifestyle is and what it isn’t will help you focus your choices and live at 100% for 100 Years and beyond.

The 100 Year Lifestyle Defined

WHAT IT IS…

Living a healthy, passionate, prosperous life, every day of your life, for 100 years and beyond
Great relationships with multiple generations and multiple circles of people
Lifelong learning, activity and adventure
Keeping your spine and nervous system functioning without interference so you can adapt to your environment and function at your full potential
Financial freedom, abundance and independence
The perfect balance of exploration, play time and fun combined with meaningful work
Maximizing your Innate capabilities and making the most of your time, energy and talents
Keeping your original body parts functioning at full capacity and keeping your mind sharp
Accepting challenges, embracing change and adapting to the unexpected
Balancing the need for immediate gratification and a secure future
Trusting your Innate. Your 100 Year Lifestyle is yours to customize.

WHAT IT IS NOT…

Rotting away as a human preservative in a nursing home
Abusing your body, masking symptoms with drugs, and then continuing to abuse yourself until one organ after the other has to be removed or replaced
All work and no play
Abusive relationships or isolation
Financial survival for 35 years and then barely getting by on Social Security and Medicare
Insignificant retirement where you become a meaningless number in a long line of an outdated system
Wearing out your body in the first 50 years and then suffering the consequences during the second 50 years
Accumulating wealth in the first 50 years and destroying relationships along the way, leaving you nobody to share it with
Creating wealth at the price of your health
Denying yourself the good things in life

Everyone deserves to be healthy and express their full potential from the time they are born through their last breath of life. This includes you!

We are excited to attract experts who understand this thinking and realize the need for this new consciousness so we can make the world a healthier and better place. You can take charge of these changes for yourself. Isn’t it time that you make the changes that you know you need to make today, and enjoy your ideal 100 Year Lifestyle.

Homework Headaches

April 21, 2018 by Dr. Eric Plasker Leave a Comment

Successful homework sessions don’t just happen. A little effort, planning and support make the difference between the headache, frustration and battleground around the completion of homework and the peaceful smooth sailing episode of your dreams.

The Real Headache – Afternoon headaches can be symptomatic of numerous causes. Getting to the cause is vital. A chiropractic examination or check-up will determine if there is misalignment of the neck, shoulders or other part of the spine – a common cause of headaches. Many times, there is immediate relief. Is the book bag or backpack too heavy? Did an injury occur during practice or rehearsal? Is dehydration possible? Is an essential vitamin or mineral missing from meals? Address the cause as soon as possible. Some chiropractic practices offer nutritional recommendations in addition to spine and nervous system services.

Study Skillset

Set Up – Arrange the study area to allow focus, good posture, and time management. Eliminate distractions and the battle stations structure. Successful homework sessions begin and end positively so determine what works for the best long term benefit. Good set-up includes a reset of thoughts. If today was a challenge, remember that tomorrow is a new day. Recalling successes, big or small, that occurred through the day help redirect discouragement and fatigue.

Stretch – Sitting for extended time can cause discomfort, a fidgety feeling, and a sense of boredom. Set a timer or alarm as a reminder to stand up and stretch, walk around the room, climb up and down the flight of stairs and breathe deeply. While standing, rest your eyes by looking out the window or simply closing them briefly. If it is a challenge to sit or concentrate, ask when the last chiropractic exam or checkup was scheduled. There can be pressure on a nerve or misalignment without pain that causes dis-ease in organs, systems or functions.

Snack – Keep nutritious snacks on hand to regulate blood sugar and help with concentration. Avoid sugary foods. Water is essential. Herbal tea may help de-stress from the day. If eating for the sake of “something to do while studying” is a habit, make changes now and snack sensibly. Avoid using food as a reward. View it as fuel to keep the engine running.

Reset – During the break, check your calendar and arrange the next chiropractic appointment to reset focus on the mind-body connection. This action can be a huge reward at the following homework session. After a break, do a “reset” with good intention and purposeful thought. Mark off what has been completed. Set a new goal for the next segment of the homework or study session. Reset the alarm or timer.

Success Awaits – The familiar saying, “They didn’t plan to fail. They failed to plan.” speaks as a reminder that in the same way homework won’t do itself, the body needs help to perform at its best. Small steps and small changes lead to achieving all types of goals!

Education 100

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