A MOTIVATIONAL POEM!

As you travel through life there are always those times
When decisions just have to be made,
When the choices are hard, and solutions seem scarce,
And the rain seems to soak your parade.

There are some situations where all you can do
Is simply let go and move on,
Gather your courage and choose a direction
That carries you toward a new dawn.

So pack up your troubles and take a step forward
The process of change can be tough,
But think about all the excitement ahead
There might be adventures you never imagined
Just waiting around the next bend,
And wishes and dreams just about to come true.

So keep putting one foot in front of the other,
And taking your life day by day…
There’s a brighter tomorrow that’s just down the road -
Don’t look back! You’re not going that way!

- Author Unknown


Jim Loria
E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com 

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL SALES!

This has always served as my guide no matter what level of sport I've been associated with or in business too! May this plan help refocus your efforts too!

Jim Loria

* Know thy Self (team/business).
* Know thy Guest (customer's business).
* Know thy Market.
* Know thy Neighbor (competition).
* Know thy Budget (hidden costs that add to bottom line).
* Thou shall be Creative and Imaginative.
* Thou shall have Fun.
* Thou shall not Procrastinate.
* Thou shall Communicate.
* Thou shall not Bear Witness against thy Neighbor (avoid negative
remarks against competition).


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WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL PIECE!

“I believe we all have opportunity. It’s always there but you don’t see it until something happens” – stated by retired Army Sergeant Rick Yarosh

Greetings!

The other night I was listening to a FOX overnight sports radio program where once-a-week this show takes time to honor our military veterans. This particular day featured a live interview with a retired Army Sergeant (Rick Yarosh), who was telling the story of how his deployment in Iraq changed his life entirely – both in physical appearance and emotionally.

It was back in September, 2006, when Yarosh and two fellow servicemen were patrolling an area of Baghdad by means of an army tank when a roadside bomb exploded. The fuel tank blew and quickly engulfed their vehicle in flames including Yarosh’s body. He was lucky to make his way out of the hatch and jumped blindly to the ground (a fall of 10-feet with no available eyesight to see what was below).

Upon landing, he rolled around in the dirt next to the burning tank and could not extinguish the flames that were burning away his skin. There was just too much fuel around him.  Blinded by the intense flames and blowing dust in the air, Yarosh mustered up enough strength to roll again – not knowing what was near him - and found himself falling into a canal of water which would finally extinguish the flames.  As he yelled out for help, other soldiers came to his rescue. They not only pulled him out of the water but they had to lift him up the steep embankment that surrounded the canal. The body armor that was designed to protect Yarosh had itself disintegrated from the fire. It crumbled to ash when military personnel tried to remove it from his body.

Yarosh was burned in over 60% of his body. He lost both ears, his nose, multiple fingers and most of the function in both hands due to the fire. He says then that he could actually see his face coming off of his head and hanging from his chin. Less than 72 hours later, he was transported out of Iraq and headed stateside to spend the next two grueling years of his life at an Army burn unit in San Antonio, TX. He underwent close to 40 surgeries during this period of time plus he had to be fitted for a prosthetic to replace part of his right leg that was amputated when Yarosh severed an artery during his fall from the tank.

“When I first got out of the Army hospital, I didn’t know how I was going to be accepted by the outside world? I saw what I looked like. I’ve never seen someone like me before? When I saw myself, I didn’t know what to expect?”

Early into his return to public life, Yarosh and his brother went to dinner at a restaurant in San Antonio. Seated a table or two away was a little 5-year-old girl and her grandfather. The little girl could not stop staring away at the Army veteran. She knew something was different. The little girl asked her Grandpa if she could go over to him. The Grandpa encouraged her to do so. The little girl made her way over. Then she stopped and stared … and stared even more. Sgt. Yarosh proceeded to lean forward into a crouched position and said to the little girl: “Hi, how are you doing?” The little girl quickly ran back to her table. At that moment, Sgt. Yarosh could hear the little girl excitedly tell her Grandpa, “He’s really nice!”

“That moment was a life changer for me,” said Yarosh. “I felt like I was accepted back into society. That’s all I needed to motivate me to go forward. I woke up everyday feeling blessed to be alive and so lucky because I could still make choices whereas some of my combat friends could not.”  One, in particular, who drove the tank on that horrific day did not survive the explosion and left behind a pregnant wife and child.

As Sgt. Yarosh stated up above, DON’T EVER SQUANDER YOUR OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE! There’s no GPS signal in your body that you drive everyday to tell you there’s a road block ahead before you react to the opportunities presented you. Go Capture Your Dreams and wake up each day knowing you have the capacity to make a difference!

My best always and Cheers!!

Jim Loria

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ARMY SGT. RICK YAROSH ON PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE: “I know people are curious. They'll stop in their tracks and look. I guess I can understand. I probably would have stared, too. I have so much pride in my new face. I hope that’s what people see. If you cannot be Proud of Yourself, you cannot do what you want to do. You can’t achieve the goals that you want in life”.

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“Don't go through life, grow through life” – stated by Eric Butterworth, New York City Minister

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“In a world filled with hate, we still dare to Hope. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to Dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to Believe” – stated by Michael Jackson, legendary ‘King of Pop’ 

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“Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die” – stated by Brian Vaszily, author and motivational speaker

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E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com
Pinterest: www.http://pinterest.com/jimloria

WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL PIECE!

Greetings!

I was scanning TV channels this past weekend and came across of all things, the famed televangelist Joel Osteen, as he was speaking to his audience.  What made me stop channel surfing was that I immediately heard the speaker touching on the subject of REMOVING NEGATIVE LABELS from today’s society? I thought, that is a subject I hear too much, so I wanted to see what else he had to say?

Following are excerpts from his speech. Powerful words that affect every single person on the Planet Earth no matter what career path you choose. But in sports, where athletes are scouted and judged daily, the words below will have even much more meaning for you!

… “You can't stop People from them...negative labeling. But you can remove them.
Negative Labels are given....people dwell on what they think they see. They feed on where you are. What they fear is where you are going!

Labels are like seeds. If you listen and accept them long enough, those Labels will take Root. Wrong Labels can only hold you back if you continually listen. Wrong Labels are acceptance of mediocrity. Separate yourself from the herd.

The only power that a Label has  … is the Power You Give It! You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Because you are absolutely unique and individual, you have a story that only you can tell … of being in your presence. So take your rightful place that no one else can fulfill.

Get rid of the negative Labels placed on you – Mediocre, Average, Regular. Rip those Labels off. Place a new Label on Yourself and live those Labels – Masterpiece, One of a Kind, Valuable, History Maker. People Label you what they see on the outside. On the inside, the HEART. If you have HEART, the WILL, the FIRE, you will SHINE on!”

FROM JIM: Always remember Tom Brady fellas, a one-day lock at the NFL Hall of Fame. He was once labeled as a “slow footed beanpole with a Division I arm but a Division 5 lower body” when he came out of high school. He could only secure one scholarship offer (Michigan).  Last year, we all heard about Russell Wilson’s rise from a long-shot 3^rd round NFL Draft pick in 2012 by Seattle to the starting QB job and eventually led his team to one of its greatest seasons in franchise history! Coming out of college, the pro scouts said “he was very undersized and had limited upside as an NFL passer”. All Wilson did was tie the all-time NFL rookie record for touchdown passes in a single-season (26) for someone that had such marginal upside?

Joel Osteen closed out his speech with a great line to always keep in mind: “People can call you anything … YOU are only what YOU answer to!”

All the best my friend!

Jim Loria

New E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com

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“When you visualize, then you materialize. If you’ve been there in the mind you’ll go there in the body” – stated by Denis Waitley, best-selling author and motivational speaker

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“Sow a thought and you reap an Action; sow an act and you reap a Habit; sow a habit and you reap a Character; sow a character and you reap a Destiny” – stated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1800’s American poet and lecturer

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“Remember that you were born with a divine purpose and destiny that only you can fulfill. Be your authentic self if you want to fulfill that dream that sleeps within your soul” – stated by an Unknown Author

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“Be very careful what you say to yourself because someone very important is listening – You” – stated by John Assaraf, entrepreneur and researcher of human behavior

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WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL PIECE!

Greetings!

I recently came across a story that I want to serve as a source of inspiration this week and remind you to always remain humble and true to your upbringing despite whatever wealth and fame you may achieve.  This article I read was reflecting back on the life of a fisherman name Phil Harris who passed away three years ago (Feb., 2010). You might remember him more as America’s favorite Sea Captain from the popular television show “Deadliest Catch”. I am a big fan of the show and have long admired the men, women and families that go to work out at sea.

Deadliest Catch debuted in 2005 and follows the lives of fishermen on the vast and brutal Bering Sea as they go crab fishing.  It’s about real people toughing it out in the world’s toughest sea, under the toughest circumstances imaginable. Many a fisherman have said that “Columbus would not have discovered America if the Atlantic were the Bering Sea!”

These are brave men that go out on their boats hoping to reel in a big catch! They do so in sub-zero working conditions, with life threatening waves that reach the levels of a four-story house and hurricane-force winds that, at times, can toss their ship around like toys.

 

Along the way, their crew members (or teammates) get injured. They’ve broken noses, ribs and ruptured discs. Once a deck master had the tip of his ring finger sliced off when it was caught between the launcher and a crab pot. There was a crewman conversing with a shipmate that got hit by a massive block of ice. These men face potential fatality every second they step foot on deck, some dodging a 900-pound crab pot that will decapitate a human in a matter of seconds or some getting accidentally caught in a cable that holds the pots and potentially getting pulled into the deep frozen sea.

There is no such thing as a DL (disabled list) with their job fishing deep out into the open sea. Many just tape up their wounds and get back to work.  “Every time we leave the dock and we’ve got gear on, I can’t sleep. I’m afraid. I’m conscious 24/7 about that,” said Zig Hansen, captain of the Northwestern boat. Captain Phil once told a reporter that his blood pressure would spike upwards to around 170/120 during his trips.

When boats heads out to sea, every person’s life is in the hands of their leader.  At any time, one of their crew members could die or one mistake could kill an entire ship’s crew and destroy families that await back home. All hands on deck must work together in tandem around the clock every day in order to make it back home at the end of the fishing season. If you watch the show, you’ll see that the Bering Sea will humble the hardest soul or challenge the most experienced  crewman. It’s a physical and mental test with no seconds to rest or let your guard down.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this story is to never give up when the game’s statistics don’t add up in your favor.  Like the brave fishermen, you have to meet every challenge with strength. Have a game plan in your mind, work it and have no excuses. As Captain Phil once said: “You either want it or you don’t and if you do, go after it. The only person stopping you is you.” Enjoy the journey ahead. Everyone – be it a fisherman or an athlete – goes through a learning curve and an immense amount of training to ultimately become skilled in your craft.

All the best!

Jim Loria

New E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com

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“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats” – stated by Bertie Charles Forbes, founder of Forbes Magazine

                                                        
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TORONTO BLUE JAYS’ MANAGER JOHN GIBBONS ON NEW YORK YANKEES LEGENDARY RELIEF PITCHER MARIANO RIVERA: "It's just the way he carries himself. The dignity. There's no fanfare. He doesn't rub anything in. He just goes out and beats you and walks off the field. And then you hear the music."

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“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it” – stated by C. JoyBell C., Poet, Novelist, Philosopher

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“Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die” – stated by Brian Vaszily, Author and Columnist

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“When you visualize, then you materialize. If you’ve been there in the mind you’ll go there in the body” – stated by Denis Waitley, Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker

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LISTENING: DO WE TAKE THIS SKILL FOR GRANTED?

There’s an old Turkish Proverb that reads: “If speaking is Silver, then Listening is Gold!”

I am sure most all of you that are reading this Blog are connected in some way to a career in marketing, public relations, sales, etc. You’ve possibly read a paper or two on the subject as well as glanced over at a few other sites to see what the professionals are stating each and every day. Most of my pieces play up the importance of communications and follow through more times than not, but there’s another skill set that we often find ourselves taking for granted and that is simply just “listening”.

Listening is a skill that doesn’t need a degree. Doesn’t cost a cent. It does affect you and I every minute of every day! Thanks to technology that changes by the day, the world we live in at present gives us everything we need to know in less than a split second and has perhaps made people pay less attention to this all-important skill?

Listening can affect us all, whether you’re a college student taking in a lecture; an athlete going over the game planning with your coaches; a sales rep attending a client meeting or working the phones. Heck, listening affects most couples even at home. One or the other complains “you’re not listening to me”. My wife always gives me a hard time and says “when it comes to your job, if someone says anything, you never forget it!” Listening does really come down to conditioning one's mind to focus on the tasks at hand.

Ultimately, we are all judged by our body of work be it from educators, employers, coaches to parenting our kids and yet, one of the vital keys to becoming that “success” in your chosen field is through the power of “listening”.

What made me chime in with this piece today came from reading a past edition of GQ Magazine that featured actor Clint Eastwood on the cover. Inside the article, Eastwood was asked about his life as a child and a special moment in his Academy Award nominated (2008) movie Changeling where the GQ writer was struck by a particular scene Eastwood directed in which a boy sits up in front of a radio to just listen in.

“Life was pretty simple then (in my day). Because you didn’t sit and watch television all the time. There was the radio. Everything was listening, so you imagined everything”, said Eastwood. On the movie scene involving the boy and radio, he added: “There’s an art to listening. There’s not much of it going on in the world. As an actor, it’s the most important single function”.

I will leave you with another favorite quote of mine which is authored by Karl Menninger from the famous Menninger family of psychiatrists (who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas). He once said: "Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand."


By: Jim Loria
Email address: jimloria0309@gmail.com

 

WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL PIECE!

Greetings!

I have always been fascinated by people be it in sports or business and the route they took to achieve career success. I admire the individual’s even more when I find that they had to face a few roadblocks while out on their personal highway or got lost along the way and needed directions to find their ultimate destination.

Roy Halladay, a lock to enter baseball’s Hall of Fame soon after his retirement, is one of those individuals. Would you ever imagine that this man, a three-time 20-game winner and twice a Cy Young Award recipient as his sport’s best pitcher, would have been removed from his Major League team and sent to the lowest level of minor league ball to re-learn how to pitch?

By the age of 22, Halladay was already pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays, compiling a 9-7 career record at the time and was showing immense promise to become a top-of-the-rotation hurler. Then came year three - the 2000 season - when he was viewed as a complete flop? There were concerns for his 4-7 won-loss record but the fact that he had set a new MLB record for worst ERA (10.64) in a single season for a pitcher with 60 innings or more, set off the alarm buttons in the Toronto front office. Their prize prospect could no longer find the plate.

This is the same pitcher, who when you go back 100 years or more through the Major League Baseball record books, you find that Roy Halladay is the only player besides the immortal Cy Young to ever strike out 200 batters in one season while having fewer walks than starts!  Yet he lost complete control of his pitching mechanics? His confidence was obviously shattered. The Blue Jays realized that they had to shut down their young star and reboot his mindset altogether. 

Even Halladay’s wife, Brandy, was concerned. During a shopping trip to a book store back during her husband’s darkest season, she was looking for published material that dealt with depression and self-esteem if that would help? Brandy, as luck has it now, also ran across a book that she bought for her husband titled - “The Mental ABC's of Pitching” written by H.A. Dorfman.

The Blue Jays’ baseball executives next called on one of their former pitching instructors (Mel Queen) and gave him the task of fixing Halladay. Queen wasted no time nor pleasantries when he first met his new pupil.  It was a “tough love” exchange of words that seem to jolt Halladay before Queen set out to help fine tune his pitching mechanics. What comes next is a portion of that riveting conversation between the two as told to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.Com.

"Now," Queen told Halladay, "You can walk out of here if you want. You have a guaranteed contract worth millions. You can walk right out of here, and you're not going to pitch in the big leagues ever again. But if you want to pitch in the big leagues again, you will do everything I tell you without question."

"O.K.," Halladay said. "I'm ready."

"Good. Let's start. How are you doing, Doc?"

"I'm good."

"What?! That's why you're so stupid! You're in Dunedin (Florida at “A” Level Ball) with a 10 ERA, and you're telling me you're good? No! You're not good!"

Queen paused.

"O.K., now we're going to start."

While Queen tinkered with Halladay’s mechanics (he would ultimately lower  the pitcher’s release point when throwing from the mound and speed up his delivery), the Blue Jays’ front office reached out to (Harvey) Dorfman, who was a Mental Skills Coach for the Oakland A back in the late 1980’s, to also work with Halladay. Both developments made a significant difference as Halladay eventually worked his way back up to the Big Leagues to complete a resume that will soon enshrine him in Cooperstown one day!

Said Halladay when he looks back on his time spent with Queen and Dorfman?  “It made the biggest difference for me. The first part was trying to rebuild that confidence in me, having a positive mentality. The second part was to simplify things. Sometimes you get caught up in the big picture—the seven innings, the three runs or less, who you're facing—and you get away from what makes you successful, which is executing pitches.”

"I think it says a lot about his mental toughness," said Mike Arbuckle, who is with Halladay now as the head of the Philadelphia Phillies’ draft day operations. "What Roy did says a lot, to take not one step backward but multiple steps backward. A lot of kids would have folded their tents."

Added Brandy Halladay: "[Dorfman] really taught Roy to focus on one thing at a time. When he gave up a hit, he learned to think about the next hitter. He helped him deal with those mental stumbling blocks every person has to deal with. The book and [Dorfman] helped his pitching career, our marriage, the way we looked at life in general ... It absolutely saved his career."

As you can see, more than ever, focus as much attention onto your “mindset development” as you do with your workouts from the neck down.  Your brain is the most sophisticated super computer in existence. Think of it as the hard drive and your body is the computer screen. You don’t want to continually save junk in the hard drive (or clutter up your mind with negative thoughts and distractions) as it will eventually slow down your computer’s ability (your body) to perform.

Translation: When your mind and body are on the same wave length, that is when your true talents will be unleashed and allow you to perform at a much higher level for a longer period of time!

All the best!

Jim Loria
E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com

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PHILLIES PITCHER COLE HAMELS ON ROY HALLADAY AND HIS LEGENDARY WORKOUTS:

"If you don't want to be like him, you just don't want to be successful. The guy is constantly going. I think I can hold my own running with him. But he's so focused and determined. He made a workout feel like a workout. You see guys work out and take breaks and talk and socialize. That's not working out. He made me grasp that even more. Don't take that break. Keep going. Keep going. Because that's what it takes. I saw it, I just didn't understand it. And once you follow him, you feel really great in the end, because you're worn out and tired as hell."

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“People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things” – stated by Elinor Smith, the world’s youngest licensed airline pilot in 1927 at age 16

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“To be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win & expect to win” – stated by Zig Ziglar, Self-Help Author and Motivational Speaker

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“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats” – stated by Bertie Charles Forbes, founder of Forbes Magazine

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“What The Mind can conceive, the Mind can achieve” – stated by Bo Schembechler, legendary college football coach at the University of Michigan

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