WHAT DOES ABUNDANCE MEAN TO YOU?

I teach ONE WORD.

Thanks to an Atlanta FACEBOOK friend who knows who she is, I have chosen the word ABUNDANCE today.

ONE WORD is a game I have always played that has many strategies and goals.

It can focus you on the ONE WORD.

It can expand your vocabulary around the ONE WORD.

It can get you closer to the true meaning of the ONE WORD.

It can help you along your life's journey through your ownership of the ONE WORD.

Let's play ONE WORD with JG's word ABUNDANCE.

To JG, ABUNDANCE means MORE THAN ENOUGH, SECURITY, PLENTY.

To someone who is homeless and hungry, it might be a hot meal.

To someone with ten million dollars liquid, it might mean very little.

Yet to that same person, if they are avaricious, it might mean little, as they sneer at someone with 50 million.

What I teach is to develop a cluster around ABUNDANCE which makes you focus on the WORD and its importance to your life.

As you choose the words which nest fit your CUSTOM CLUSTER, you include some and disregard the others.

I stress to students that this ONE WORD exercise doesn't have to have a beginning or an end.

It's a fluid journey.

Just like your life is a fluid journey.

You can't remember your earliest beginning and hopefully, you will have little knowledge of your final stop.

The ONE WORD experience helps you to FOCUS on what is important to you and for you to have a permanent record of the WORDS you have chosen along your journey.

My WORDS FOR ABUNDANCE came out in this cluster.

PLETHORA
AFFLUENCE
COPIOUS
MYRIAD
PROSPERITY
OPULENCE
THRIVING

My personal preference for my CUSTOM CLUSTERS is to position 4-8 WORDS for me to associate with the FOCUS WORD.

You will note how ONE WORD becomes a powerful vocabulary tool.

Words such as PLETHORA, COPIOUS, MYRIAD AND OPULENCE are excellent POWER words in anyone's vocabulary.

This is why my game or teaching tool of ONE WORD might very well be the greatest vocabulary builder ever.

I will let you be the judge.

When I see ABUNDANCE, in my mind< I SEE piles of CASH on a poker table in a casino.

I SEE a refrigerator filled to the top shelf with provisions for weeks.

I SEE a safe, secure dwelling, with a laughing family, enjoying the best life has to offer.

And I see one THRIVING to achieve this abundance and never surrendering their ambition.

No matter what one's definition of ABUNDANCE is, we can all agree that we need to THRIVE to achieve what we desire.

I strive for ABUNDANCE.

We all do.

By adding this WORD to your FOCUS, you will have added another tool as you follow your personal journey.

We have no idea what will come next along our path.

That is the way of this world we live in.

We do know this.

We have our words.

ONE WORD at a time can make a difference.

And now you have seen how.

I hope it makes a difference for you.

WHAT IS THE WORD?

Who's on First?

Not to digress into an Abbott and Costello classic, but many of my new readers ask the question.

They see me write that they are one word from success.

It follows that they want to know:

What is the word?

Now, for the first time, here is the answer.

What do you want the word to be?

As a motivational speaker, that leads me to still another story.

An escort slides into the passenger seat of the client's vehicle.

"What is your name?" The excited client queries.

"What do you want my name to be?"

And so it goes.

I have created a thinking system for futurists of tomorrow.

You come with a goal that you would like to reach in your life.

It might have to do with your career, your relationships, your money, your health, you name it.

And that's exactly the answer.

You put a word name to your focus.

I will show you how to create a cluster of words to help you reach and satisfy your goal.

In the coming weeks, I will share some of those words with you.

Some will come from words I have chosen and others will come from my readers.

If you have one which symbolizes your goal, send it along to me and it might make it to this blog.

All words lead to your success.

With my system, you will learn to focus on the one which best helps you speed your journey.

Have a safe trip.

WILL YOU JOIN US?

Do you think the world can be changed by teaching a single word?

What about a flood?

Does it begin with a single drop?

I have been teaching words to parents and kids for 40 years.

I have one very special dream.

I want to join those who are willing to teach one word as a way of making a difference in a person's life.

This blog will deal with the philosophy of the matter in the coming days, weeks and months.

My posting today is simply a shout out to all my readers.

Would you be willing to join such a movement?

If you are, please shout back at me.

I would appreciate your noise.

DEAR DESPERATE STUDENT

Note: My response to the letter published in this blog yesterday


Dear Kiki


How great to hear from you after 30 years!

I am so sorry that you write from pain and not happiness.

My bet is that there is still a happy woman somewhere buried within the agony.

Yes, I will do everything in my power to help you find that woman once more.

You must realize that my entire work these days is helping others achieve their life purpose of becoming a personal coach.

That, along with my writing and other activities, takes up my days here in San Diego.

However, I hardly can turn down the compelling and well written, I may add, request of a former student who wants to return to the classroom once again.

As with Honors English, thirty years ago, I have rules.

If you follow them, I can help you.

If you don't, I can't and won't.

I have a 30 day program to help you begin your quest.

From what I have read, you have never been educated to eat right.

For the next 14 days, I will be reviewing what you eat now and how you can substitute foods that are good for you and that you enjoy.

I will write about portion control, my "last bite" theory, visualization, the liquids you should be drinking, and how the simple act of walking can help you once again take control of your life.

I will suggest a reading list of no more than 3 books which you will read and internalize as you complete my 30 day program and graduate on to a lifestyle where eating is no longer a diet, but a lifestyle.

I will teach you to think about food in a way that has never occurred to you before.

Kiki, together, we can do this.

Just like 30 years ago, I will be your mentor.

But you must become the "A" student once again.

This time we are goal is not college.

This time our goal is helping you discover that beautiful woman looking to escape from the prison she now sits.

Kiki, your enclosed pictures tell me you are still a beautiful woman.

Let's take this journey together.

Are you ready?

I can't promise you this will be easy.

Great pursuits never are.

But I can promise you a rewarding journey, if you set your mind to this goal.

And now our journey begins............


Today, Kiki is around 140 pounds, remarried and a very content woman. She will never buy "diet" foods again and she laughs when people ask her what was the name of her diet.

As Kiki writes, her answer is that she connected with a former teacher who taught her another lesson about life.

Kiki gives me too much credit.

Kiki simply learned a better way to eat.

And if you have the time, I can teach it to you.

LETTER FROM A DESPERATE STUDENT

Dear Coach:

I am desperate!

I now weigh 295 pounds and my weight in high school was 130 pounds.

Can you see the tears on the page which I now write?

How did this happen to me?

I hear laughs and jokes where I work.

I have a respected executive position with a big company and lately, I feel that my fellow employees are trying to push me out of my hard earned position.

They are ashamed that I represent them.

Last week, we were at a fancy downtown restaurant for a night of drinks and celebration for an outstanding project we completed as a team.

We had no sooner been handed our menus, when one of the new associates, said, "Let's have Kiki order for us, she probably has eaten everything on the menu at least once."

I was crushed.

How dare he insult me with such a crude comment?

Yet, I felt that I deserved it.

I rushed to the restroom, engulfed in tears.

What was worse, Steve, not a single one of my "friends" followed me.

I called in sick for the rest of the week and only recently returned to work.

I am an attorney and I don't know if there is movement on having me terminated after more than a decade with the firm.

I have tried every diet from ones where you buy the food, to ones where you weigh the food to others where you practically starve yourself.

Nothing works.

I was on Facebook recently and a friend from Miami asked me to FRIEND you.

Now, you might remember who I am.

I am Kiki from your Seniors Honors English class.

You were such a marvelous teacher.

You taught me vocabulary in such a way that I soared through college and Law School with a magical flair for words which astounded my friends.

Now, I see you are bringing your talent to a wider audience, by being a mentor to new personal coaches worldwide.

What an amazing following you have!

Please, Mr. Tarde, I am begging you here, can you play your magic one more time in my life and coach me to take my life back.

I am heading down a bleak, lonely road.

You were my prince in shining armor in Miami, so many years ago.

What a story it would be if you could come back into my life for a second act.

I will be your faithful student once more.

I promise.

Please help me.

I have nowhere else to turn.

Kiki


NOTE

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR MY RESPONSE TO KIKI'S REQUEST...............

ARE YOU INDEPENDENTLY WEALTHY?

The first thought here is that I am writing about money.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If you have enough money to live each remaining day of your life in the manner you choose, then you are independently wealthy.

That's what is so exciting about being a personal coach.

You live each day of your life helping others to follow their dreams.

By doing such noble work, you achieve your dreams as well.

When you can wake up each morning and live the day as you plan it, the energy, freedom and exhilaration is available in unlimited supply.

The personal coaches I teach begin their journey responding to a single question.

What is your life purpose?

If they share with me that they believe their purpose in life is to help others, I know for a fact that personal coaching should become their journey.

Will it be your journey?

It begins with a single step.

WHAT YOU WERE NEVER TAUGHT IN SCHOOL!

Father's Day has passed.

So what do we look forward to now?

Sports nuts are caught in a bind.

Football season is still a couple months away, basketball season is over and baseball's pennant races won't be heating up until later this summer.

It seems like the couch potato will either have to go outside and become a baked potato or just roll over in the hammock and go back to sleep until the cold weather arrives.

Or you could spend the next 60 days or so working on yourself.

My personal coaches are focusing on a variety of students as we head to the halfway marker in 2009.

Let's consider those students seeking a way to lose weight and keep it off!

Those of you who have worked with me know that I believe there is no such thing as dieting.

If you are yo-yoing on diets, you have probably lost a ton of weight and even more likely, gained it all back.

That's what statistics tell us.

First, we teach our students to realize that weight control is not their fault.

The fact is that we have never been taught the right way to diet.

All those years in school!

For what?

How many years of English grammar were you subjected to?

Couldn't a few nutrition and weight management courses been snuck in somewhere?

And don't get me started on what foods you found when you headed off to the school cafeteria.

My personal coaches are loaded with those who are looking for a personal formula to lose weight and keep it off.

We have that formula.

And so do you.

We just have to ignite your genius within.

Have a great summer!

And make it a memorable one by committing to do something for yourself!