MOVED TO WP

I am in the process of moving the blog over to the website of yesyoucanmotivation.com So please see the blog over there. I will not be updating this site. Thank you for all who have read my blog I owe all of you a big thank you.

-Tommy

Paying it forward

Today I was driving to an appointment and my mind started wonder. I started thinking about something I learned a couple of weeks ago at a Linked In class I went to. It was being taught by a good friend of mine Kevin Knebl. As Kevin was doing his introduction he was talking about paying it forward and I started thinking today on my drive to a meeting that I have been very bad at paying it forward. In 1988 on my way to school when I went to Columbia College in Chicago I ended up having a flat tire, oh I need to mention what I was wearing a shirt and tie. When I went to school I guess you could call me a freak because that is what I would always have on, a shirt and tie at school. If you ever saw the TV show or the movie fame it was very similar to that type of school. I didn’t have the right equipment to change a tire, lucky for me there were the people that patrolled the highways to help stranded motorists and that was me. While the gentlemen that helped me change my tire was a very nice guy, I asked what can I do to get you some credit? He gave me a card and I did nothing about that. Ironically the first month I moved to Denver back in 1997 I end up having car problems. Very similar situation I was greeted by a gentleman in a tow truck who actually did have to tow my car, he handed me a card about getting credit or whatever recognition and I did nothing about that again.
I started thinking about what Kevin was saying that week in class about paying it forward and that’s something that I’ve really made a conscious effort about starting this week. One of the websites I been using a lot lately is Linked In. This website if you’re not familiar with it is very much a business website to help you promote yourself or to look for jobs, and OH YES to get recommendations. That is what I want to talk to you about recommendations; Kevin has over 700 recommendations on his Linked In profile. As of tonight I am up to 11 recommendations. Now here’s how we pay it forward, I have never been a fan of the recommendations because to me it was like an ego trip. However I have learned through Kevin’s class that it is vital to have recommendations. I received a phone call about speaking at this event while one of things that the gentleman Dan wanted is my bio well as I started thinking about what I need to include in my bio were recommendations. I have now become a big fan of Linked In and recommendations. Here is my point to tie it all together. On Linked In once somebody recommends you, the system automatically creates the paying it forward by asking you to recommend that person right then and there. I asked a lot of my former colleague’s to make a recommendation for me, once they make a recommendation from me I then get to pay it forward automatically. Now I get to see firsthand what my colleagues are saying about me then I turn around and say kind words about them as well. Part of my bio is going to be recommendations to let the event planner understand that I am not just some Joe off the street therefore the recommendations are going to help build my credibility. Now even though I’ve been a corporate trainer for 13 years public speaking in my opinion is public speaking. However this is a new venture for me I don’t want to just show up being that Joe coming off the street again I will be bringing credibility to this event by first having a bio with recommendations.
Before moving on to a talk about paying it forward, I need to mention that this blog was totally created with new software I purchased called Dragon speak where right now I am speaking into a headset and the computer is typing it, I love new software.
As I keep talking (because I am talking really) about paying it forward and one other thing that has really, really been apart of my life please probably passed few years but it’s only been probably the past year and a half were of really embraced the law of attraction. If you’re not familiar with the law of attraction, basically means like attracts like so for example if your positive person I know whole lot and start laughing though he will you motivational people are always so positive things like that. Let me just explain, like attracts like meeting your positive person who can attract positive people. Here is why I firmly only believe in the law of attraction. Recently I’ve met people that I do not think I would’ve ever met and less I believe in the law of attraction. I have a very good friend of mine Denise, who was at a health fair promoting her new business. As things are starting to wind down I was sitting there speaking to her dad who has business of his own and I’d mention the word divorce and that’s when the law of attraction came into fruition. The gentleman who was at the table next to Denise and her dad was named Zach, and he has created an organization that is trying to help promote dads in a positive light. Zach’s organization is called “Be Men” at WWW.bemen.com. Now if I hadn’t shown up to this event supported my good friend Denise in turn I would not have met Zach. If I had not of met Zach then I would not have met Dan who was the one who called me today to be speaking at this fatherhood event on October 4th.
You might be asking yourself right now, Tommy how can you take the law of attraction and paying it forward and put it into one blog should this be two separate pieces of context? The answer is no. Here is why I am saying no and here is why that they tie into each other. Remember I said that the law of attraction in simple terms is like attracts like you’re a bad person chances are you’re going to attract bad people bad event. For me trying to stay positive in order to attract positive events positive people in my life will create the paying for word mentality. And here’s how I can put this is the best example of putting these two pieces together. When I first started my twitter account I was able to find like minded people. One of the first like minded people was Kevin Knebl. One day Kevin Tweeted out that he was going to be in Denver to do a speaking engagement at lunch time. Knowing that Kevin is a very positive person and what he was speaking about that day was actually about twitter which I was just first started to learn I thought this would be a great golden opportunity to not only meet Kevin but to learn more skills of Twitter. Well not only did I meet Kevin another gentleman who was there speaking as well named Chris Kauza who is a marketing person. So bear with me here we have law of attraction like attracts like. I meet Kevin and I met Chris at this event, Chris gave an example of how he helped a speaker go from getting no money to be speaking to making money and for me that is one light bulb went off. Once I heard Chris say he can help a new speaker achieves success I knew that eventually I would need to work with Chris.
After that day I went back home and I was already following Kevin on Twitter, I then started to follow Chris on Twitter with his company Fett marketing and again like attracts like. I don’t remember when I had my “AH HA” moment that I wanted or needed to work with Chris on creating my own speaking business but it doesn’t matter because I am doing it now working with Chris to help me become more successful at my business. So here’s what we have so far I’ve met Kevin I met Chris I’ve met Zach all people that are wanting to help others, and it’s like Zig Ziegler says you can get anything in your life you want as long as you’re willing to help others get what they want. Now here’s how I put the paying it forward into perspective. Kevin does these seminars about Twitter and Linked In and on Linked In I am also part of several groups. One of the groups was asking about how to do certain things on Linked In and well my way of paying it forward was to put Kevin’s website on my response back to say this gentleman is a Linked In trainer and can pretty much help you with your answer within his class. Now I wasn’t trying to sell anything, I know that Kevin runs a business and felt that this might be a good opportunity for others who even though they’re on the Linked In and they may not be aware of all the things that Linked In can do therefore it’s a win-win situation for all parties. Not only can these individuals learn more about Linked In by listening to Kevin either through a classroom setting or through his webinars.
What have we learned here? Well what I hope you have learned is that paying it forward can be in my opinion tied to the law of attraction. Recently on iTunes I bought the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and one of the things that the book talks about is that if you’re thinking that you need money for costly bills but let’s and you know you’re going to be a little bit short, one of the things in the book that Robert Kiyosaki talks about is paying it forward but in a kind of a different way. He says if you’re going to be a little short of money then donate money to a charity and it will come back to you in buckets. I started to think about that and in my mind it does make sense. I know you might not believe me nor believe my positive outlook but as the computer is typing this and I have a headset on as I’m talking into the computer I’m staring at my vision board. A vision board is something that you have a poster and you put up your goals and pictures of things that you want to strive for. One picture that I cut out of a magazine showing Joel Osteen from behind and you see his audience and how massive his audience is and the reason why I have this picture is because I want the opportunity to speak to a group of thousands of people in one place. One other thing that I look at on my vision board is one of the quotes I have that is from Vince Lombardi. He says the difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.