When honors and awards come

Yesterday the Apopka Area Chamber of Commerce awarded me the Businessman of the Year award for community service and business leadership for our area in Northwest Orange County. What an honor, and certainly one that I feel both shocked and humbled by, when considering all the other worthy potential recipients.

At the annual banquet, a couple other awards were given to various community leaders, and then they started to read the bio of the one who would be named Businessman of the Year. Obviously after they gave some of my stats, I knew it was me that was about to be introduced.

So what do you feel when you are about to be singled out to receive an honor?

My thoughts went to our team at Reliance Media, Apopka Printing and New Book Publishing who work to help build the amazing businesses that I am privileged to lead. I thought of all the other great people in the Chamber who in my mind were more deserving to receive this award. I thought of my 87-year-old dad who built an amazing business over many years, and who was sitting at the banquet. And above all, I thought of my wife Sheila who has been with me through it all. Her intellect, determination, wisdom, motivation and skill has been right there with me in building our businesses and our life together. She certainly is more deserving of honor for putting up with me and for what she has accomplished on her own.

Unfortunately I wasn't given the microphone to comment or I would have expressed these thoughts to the large gathering. But I think what I need to take away from all of this is that God has been the one who deserves all the credit. He has supplied the gifts, talent, opportunities and work ethic to be the steward of all he has given me responsibility over. He alone is the one to be honored for the opportunities He brings our way.

Capturing Your Thoughts

Everyday great thoughts come and go – they escape, and we lose them.

Like a “traffic speed trap” set by police, we need to be on the alert for speeders (great thoughts) and stop and detain them, then arrest them and take them captive. These speeders are the thoughts and ideas that have great potential to help us and others, but they come and go at a time when we think we just don’t have time to do anything else but note they occurred and hope we can remember them later.

From now on, stop them! Step one is KNOW that they WILL be coming and probably at the most inopportune time to capture them.

Next develop a quick way to arrest them and “handcuff” them – meaning take them captive in a temporary fashion. Maybe it is carrying a small 2”x3” notepad in your pocket or purse. Merely jot down a quick note of the general idea, but enough to jog your memory later (temporary captivity). Maybe you have a memo section on your phone, or a small digital recorder, and you quickly make a small memory-jogging verbal notation. 95% of the people will not do this critical step for success, I have found.

Now probably 75% of the people who did take temporary custody of that wonderful idea don’t do step two – move the note from “temporary captivity” to “permanent incarceration.” Daily have a quick method of moving the note from the notepad or verbal message, to a computerized add-to list of GREAT THOUGHTS!

Once you have this computerized master list, you have made it to the elite few in life. From this list great ideas will come for, books, income generating, relational growth, child rearing, business development and so on. Now categorize and prioritize the list as to both importance and timetable for further development.

Last make an appointment with yourself to regularly review this list, asking yourself when is the time to commit to development of that idea – from concept to completion. Do this, and succeed in any avenue of your life!