Boom! Choices to blow the doors off business

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

Boom! Choices for Blowing the Doors off Business as Usual by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg. "You are not a product of your conditions, you are a product of your decisions. You were designed to choose, and you are defined by that choice."

This is one of those business handbooks you should have at work, on your managers' book shelf, and the owner should nourish this as part of his business culture.

Life is about choices that affect results and can create conditions you would choose. It's not limited to the self-employed entrepreneur, but also partners to employees. Boom! Choices has a website that is also jam packed with tools to help you with their recommendations.

Here's a walk through Boom!

You are designed to choose... defined by choice. Learn the art of play while you work, be uniquely productive that fits you. No matter what you do have freedom to choose.

Choice #1 Be a player, not a bystander.
Extraordinary happens when ordinary people do whatever it takes. Do what you can control and you can control more than you may think. Join the dialogue, enter the debate. Players influence the game. It's not just the owners who do, all play a role. Be a player.

Choice #2 Be accountable.
There is no "They", only you and me. Don't play the blame game, banish tribalism (subgroups who try to control). Forgive and move on.

Choice #3 Choose service over self-interest.
Me-first rarely delivers the desired outcome. Service is about bringing the best out in others. You can create meaning from trials, if you choose wisely.

Choice #4 Focus Forward.
Your future isn't in the rear view mirror. It enables you to overcome defeat and transcend petty preoccupations, improve decisions, raise problems solving skills, create team unity. Give complaining a rest, nourish new ideas from unlikely places, get out of the wells dug by others.

Choice #5 Play to your genius.
Your work is a statement about you. Make every project a real cool project. Vent your genius, work in your sweet spot. The Sweet Spot: When these three are congruent with each other.
1. Your gifts and talents.
2. What you are passionate about.
3. What needs to be done.
Or simply merging gifts, passion, contribution.

Choice #5 Get it done.
Success is the reward for those who make a difference. Create vitality, energy and buzz. Declare war on complacency, be responsible to educate yourself, keep learning forever, relish being uncomfortable, be a guru of knowledge in your field, play to win vs keeping from losing. Speak up, speak out.

Choice #7 Risk more, gain more.
The world isn't changed by those unwilling to take risks. Safe is risky. Step through your fear. There is an adventure with your name on it waiting for you to step in and assume your role.

The Manifesto
Freedom is to choose. It shapes who I become. I am a product of my choices, not my conditions.

Choice #1
I won't shrink from my God-given abilities. I'm a player with passion, energy and a desire to win. I choose to be a player.

Choice #2
I will lead to where I am planted. My happiness, job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment depends on ME... no one else. My team is my ally, I will collaborate. I choose to be accountable.

Choice #3
The world is not here to make me happy. My happiness comes from using my gifts to serve the world. I will give unselfishly. I choose service over self-interest.

Choice #4
I focus on what can be done, how to make it work, what I have to achieve. I choose to focus forward.

Choice #5
My work is my signature. I make masterpieces. I engage in work that makes me come alive. I choose to play to my genius.

Choice #6
I am being paid for what I'm doing today. I am dedicated to results. I choose to get it done.

Choice #7
I choose to take risks to live more fully. I handle fear, face it and step through it which causes fear let go of its stronghold. I choose to risk more and gain more.

The Manifesto is a creed that should be reviewed and recited frequently.
For more on Boom! note:
http://www.freibergs.com/

Our choices influence our lives and influence those around us.
We are role models in this world in everything we do. In school at work as an employee or boss, as the CEO or the door man. We all make choices which have an affect on others. We are constantly having an impact on ourselves and on others.

The Apostle Paul said
"You say, "I am allowed to do anything...but not everything is good for you.
You say, "I am allowed to do anything"—but not everything is beneficial."
I try to please everyone in everything I do. I don't just do what I like or
what is best for me, but what is best for them so they may be saved."
(I Corinthians 10:23, 33 NLT)

What this indicates is that we influence people in everything we do and we should always consider implications of our actions. It's not so much what we do, but how what we are doing is affecting or influencing those around us. Is it based on a loving Spirit?

Many supervisors or business owners overlook how a simple brazen comment may start a string of emotions in a person's life that will hurt his self esteem and then consequently bring a blur in his ability to make good choices. It is so many times not so much the situation but how you handle the situation. This spirit enters the heart and steers a person to making a good or bad choice.

Choice can affect the rest of our lives and one indiscreet cruel word can affect someone else's life for long term. What we say or do today could have an affect on someone's life that comes back to us years later. Then we wonder where something comes from. What happened is that we planted the seed that showed its fruit years later. Good seeds produce good fruit, bad seeds produce bad fruit.

But one encouraging thoughtful comment can totally turn a person's day around. Our character, the Spirit of choice, has more impact on us and others than we realize, will take the credit or blame for.

The Apostle Paul said to choose to keep yourself from the concerns of the world. Make choices that allow the freedom in Christ to expand, not contract it. The less attachment we have to the things of this world, the more we can cultivate the benefits to the things of Heaven which last forever. And tap Heavenly Powers available.
(1 Corinthians 7:30)

Jeremiah the prophet cautioned us in that he said, "you keep going down the same self-destructive path, refusing to turn back, even though I warned you. Instead of saying what terrible thing I have done, you continue this path of self-destruction running like a gang of wild horses in the prairie. Yet you won't turn from your ways."
(Jeremiah 8:5)

We can always start to change our choices when we see how counterproductive they are. In some choices we made, we see the destruction it brings, but then we go right ahead in the same path again. Jeremiah says to change this turn to Spirit, Truth, Love and let it guide your path.

When you get results look at the path that got you there. Then the next time make the right choices that will get you there again or improve what you just did with even better choices. Always be learning from what you do either good or bad. Be willing to course-correct when you see you are in error.

Much of the business practices that worked in the 90's may not work in the 2010 era. Each path must be reviewed again on its own merit. History does not always guarantee the same for the future when circumstances change. That's why it is so important to seek God's Wisdom each time, Seek Him and His Spirit intelligence for every decision. The Spirit knows all things and can tell you the best choice each time. When we assume and don't seek God fresh each time, we risk making the wrong choice even though it worked before. In Joshua's battles the only one he lost was when he failed to seek God's direction for a seemingly easy battle.... he became overly self-confident because of so many overwhelming victories.

Take nothing for granted. Seek God new, fresh each time.
His mercies are new every morning and His power is renewable every day. His power can be with us. We need to recognize this power of God is available and He wants us to tap it. He wants to be part of our lives too. It's time to acknowledge and participate in His, The Holy Spirit, Power in our pursuits.

His doors lead to life and righteousness... or right-ness in our choices. The road to self-destruction is broad with many paths. The road to life is narrow.
"The door to heaven is narrow. Work hard to get in."
(Luke 13:24, NLT)

It requires complete devotion to Jesus and Jesus' Spirit.

Jesus is the right highway to greatness beyond comprehension.
Take the High Road and live powered in His Life-filled existence forever.