As children we learn immediately once entering the world, every experience is a lesson that has the potential to be embedded in our brain forever.  As we age we obtain more knowledge from school, work, relationships, hardships, accomplishments etc.  With that being said our brains have a capacity, which only can store a certain amount of knowledge/information. 

I have a lot of different experiences and knowledge however some of the information I retained over the years has escaped me due to my limited brain capacity. Everyday there is information flowing in and out of our brain/mind and it sometimes can be over whelming for people.

I say that to say this “everything is not for everybody”.  We need to be aware of what we allow to enter and exit our minds.  Not all information is good information, for example, say growing up you were told things like “you will never make it”, “you are a low life”, “you are a failure”.  At some point you may start to believe those things, not because you think they are true but because you let those ideas occupy space in your mind and you retain that information, negative ideas need to be removed for your mind set. 

On the flip side we need to make sure we hold on to positive information that has entered our minds.  Remember our minds can only hold so much information so make sure the information stored will build you up and not tear you down.  Ideas like “I am beautiful”, “I am a winner”, “I am successful”, and “I have victory” is the information we need to fill our minds with.  There is too much negativity in this world but there is also a lot of positivity as well, it depends on what information you are storing. 

Here is an analogy, your cell phone holds 100 contacts and you just met a great person and you received their contact but the only way you can save that information is to delete one contact to create space.  It’s the same thing with ideas, information, experiences etc.

I challenge you to critically evaluate what you expose yourself to on a regular basis TV, radio, Internet, people, attitudes etc.  The purpose is to get you to start thinking about the information you are allowing to enter and exit your mind. 

The image you have of yourself in your mind is your physical image to the world, when you change the way you think about yourself you will change the way you look to the world and how the world looks to you.

The 3 P’s are the foundation to all successes one will achieve in life.

Persistence is the continued existence or occurrence. It is the continuance of an effect after its’ cause is removed. Persistence is important because it is very rare that we will get what we want the first time we try however we may finally get it after the 10th attempt. If we received everything we ever wanted on the first attempt we would have no appreciation for hard work and dedication. Find your passion set your target/goal and you work and you work and you work if you fail you fail forward and you keep working. Eventually what you want you will get.

Patience is the ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. The famous saying patience is a virtue is absolutely true. Since you have been persistent at working/studying your craft you must be patient and understand anything great is worth the wait. At some point in life we will all be faced with a delay of some sort, but once we learn to stay strong mentally, physically, spiritually and willing to live restless nights than one will understand patience.

Prayer to offer devout petition, praise, thanks, etc., to God or an object of worship. I am not going to preach the gospel but I will say whoever or whatever you worship ask for a blessing, guidance, strength, health etc. Put all that you have been working on or studying into the atmosphere and if all goes well you will acquire the benefits.

I challenge you to do some self-reflecting and check to see if you are laying down a foundation to success.

Thank you for reading.
P.S. Hey guys, Akil here, if you want to learn a little more about Devon personally, check out the interview Devon recently did for the Life Work Balances website.  http://lifeworkbalances.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/episode-12-devon-rembert/ 

Good Monday folks!

Today’s piece will be short and sweet. One of my best friends shared this with acronym with me and it is something I will always remember now I would like to share it with you.

H.O.P.E= Have Only Positive Expectations

H.O.P.E is what has contributed to my accomplishments in my career as well as in my personal development. H.O.P.E is all about your mentality if you only have positive expectations the outcome can only be positive. Every situation we face in life can be looked at one of two ways, negative or positive. One must make the conscious decision about his/her attitude, we have the luxury of choosing how feel (which is really powerful when you think about it).

Your challenge this week will be to keep H.O.P.E alive.

Thanks