31 December 2013

BE BETTER THAN LAST YEAR!

WOW! Another year is done. Another year is starting. An end and a beginning all in a matter of seconds. That’s it. As everyone knows but no one wants to accept “we can’t change time”, we cannot speed it up and most certainly, we cannot slow it down. All that we can do is accept that time is change and change is time, it is always happening it is all around us.

The past is written never to be re-written. The future is a blank slate that we, in the present, get to write on. However, there is no going forward to write it we can only move in time towards it. We can plan things out but even then, no plan is foolproof. As General Dwight D. Eisenhower is credited as saying, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Obviously, 2014 is not going to be a battle but yet we often set ourselves up for a situation in which we are destined to fail. It is because we fail to plan.

This leads me to the hottest topic this time every year: RESOLUTIONS.

Many of us (myself included) have been guilty of proclaiming resolutions for the New Year only to have them fail or forgotten a few weeks into that New Year.

There are many tips, tools, and ideas (mine included) there flying around right about now.  There is nothing wrong with that!  Actually, I look forward to them every year because it shows that we need help.  We need plenty of help!

However, just before I finished writing my book “The Walking Leader" I stumbled across something and it became my mantra, my catchphrase, my daily mission, my motto: "Be Better Than Yesterday."

Now with a minor change I make my new year's resolution and I invite you to make it yours:
"BE BETTER THAN LAST YEAR!"

Thank you,
Dave Guerra

P.S. I do invite you to join the conversation and tell me what you are thinking.

As always you can read this blog post in its original location at http://daveguerra.blogspot.com

I invite you to
follow me on Twitter: @daveguerra
visit my website: www.daveguerra.com

To order your copy of The Walking Leader:  Amazon Paperback / Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble

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28 December 2013

Falling off the same mountain?

Why do we keep falling off the same mountain?

It's that time of year again. Time to make those dreaded New Year's Resolutions.  For many of us, the top resolution was and will be: LOSE WEIGHT/GET IN SHAPE

For others it is get a better job.

And for some it will be finish/accomplish this or that project (something that's been on the back burner for a long time)

Of course, you are different and your resolution will be something else.

Well no matter what it is, for many of us we will start 2014 fast and furious then by 25 or so of January the resolution becomes an old memory only to be dusted off sometime around the first bite of pumpkin pie next Thanksgiving.

Then the old "I will feast during the holidays and come New Year's I will do better." Only to repeat the process all over again. Thus we fall off the same mountain, again.

So how do we keep from falling off the same mountain?

More aptly, what should we do to not keep falling off the same mountain?

Find a different mountain to fall off of? No! That's not the answer.

What is the answer is to pace yourself. Remember, there are approximately 330 days till the start of the Holiday 2014 Season.

Create a goal. Break that goal down into smaller manageable and scalable sub-goals. Then work on those sub-goals.

For example, you say you want to lose 30lbs in 2014. Well, 2014 is 365 days long that means that on average you can lose 2.5lbs a month to reach that goal. It is that simple.

Have you ever seen a crop of corn or cotton grow? It does not grow overnight. I grows over the course of several months. First, the sprout then the stalk, lastly an ear of corn. Nothing overnight, nothing instant, everything in its time.

Trust on this one, if you stumble and fall trying to reach the sub-goal the distance your fall won't be as far as if you fell off the entire mountain.

Do what you can to reach the top of the mountain.

One step at a time and before you know it you will never fall of the mountain, again!


As always you can read this blog post in its original location at http://daveguerra.blogspot.com

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16 December 2013

Introducing DOUGHBOY CITY

Please allow me to introduce you to my first work of FICTION: DOUGHBOY CITY

DOUGHBOY CITY is something that I have been working on since 2011 when I was a participant in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). Then I put the core of this book on the shelf for about a year and a half. After the publication of THE WALKING LEADER, I decide to dust off the file that was DOUGHBOY CITY and I hit the keyboard running.

Then before I knew it, the book that was to become the final product was complete.

I had a lot of fun writing DOUGHBOY CITY as I did writing THE WALKING LEADER. If I can do it, I will continue to have this kind of fun for a very long time. Writing FICTION was a very nice departure from the NON-FICTION. Personally, I believe that I have stumbled on to something in alternating between FICTION and NON-FICTION means I can decompress from one while working on the other. I like the idea of breaking it up. It reminds me of the author DAVID BALDACCI who wrote a long line of serious thriller novels before taking a different path in The Christmas Train. FYI, The Christmas Train happens to rank in the top 100 of my all-time favorite Christmas stories.

About DOUGHBOY CITY.

The story takes place in the two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A terrible training “accident” takes the life of a young US Soldier. Another Soldier who is friends with the victim starts to put two and two together and figures out that it is no accident. However, he cannot prove it, especially, when the person he suspects is the killer all but confesses. He cannot prove it until one night as the world was changing an unlikely duo changes everything for everyone.

You can order your copy for the KINDLE DEVICE or APP: DOUGHBOY CITY (Occupied Berlin: Tales from Freedom's Outpost)

Don't worry the paperback version of DOUGHBOY CITY will be available on 7 JANUARY 2014.

Thank you,
Dave Guerra

P.S. I do invite you to join the conversation and tell me what you are thinking.

As always you can read this blog post in its original location at http://daveguerra.blogspot.com

I invite you to
follow me on Twitter: @daveguerra
visit my website: www.daveguerra.com

To order your copy of The Walking Leader:  Amazon Paperback / Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble

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13 December 2013

Turn Down The Background Noise

The Christmas season is well underway and every merchant and retailer is gunning for your hard-earned money. I am all for that! However, what I am not all for is the commercials that just do not get it. That is OK, there will always be commercials that will either talk down to the consumer or provide so much noise that the true message will never be heard.

Case in point, TJ Maxx has a series of commercials running under the title of "The Gifter". The series focus on a woman who is considered The Gifter, the one individual that knows exactly what everyone wants and knows that the retailer is the only place to get those gifts. In one of the series of commercials, the background audio was so overpowering that properly understanding the voice-over (narrator) was next to impossible.

The music was just too loud that trying to listen to the message was quickly becoming very frustrating.

This got me thinking about what about everyone else that is trying to get their message out there. How are they going about it? Are they putting STYLE over Substance because people want the pretty girls and the loud music? Are they forgetting Substance because Style has to rule the day?

In most cases, the answer is YES and in most of those cases, that is the wrong answer.

It is the WRONG answer!

No matter what, no matter when, and most definitely no matter who, the content will always be King. While you can put loud, colorful clothes on the King and fire up a row of trumpeters but if people do not see the content for themselves, they will see a King that’s just a flash in the pan and that my friends is not a good thing. That’s not a good thing for your message no matter what it is.

So turn down the background noise and turn up the message!


Thank you,
David G. Guerra

P.S. I do invite you to join the conversation and tell me what you are thinking.

As always you can read this blog post in its original location at http://daveguerra.blogspot.com

I invite you to
follow me on Twitter: @daveguerra
visit my website: www.daveguerra.com

To order your copy of The Walking LeaderAmazon Paperback / Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble

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