God has given us an amazing power to make choices and to reap blessings as a result of those choices!

This is my closing video for my Father’s Day message next week at our church, New Hope Christian Fellowship (click on name for map). And my main point.

However, there is a lot More.  God has given me a very special message to fill in all the cracks that may be in our relationships with our Dads and with our Heavenly Father.

I will have the message recorded for those who can’t be there in person.

May God’s blessings flow out of your positive choices!

This classic daily devotional has delighted Christians for a hundred plus years! And its revelations and wisdom never gets old.

Now technology helps me keep up on my daily reading, even when I am too rushed to read it during my morning quiet time.

You can get it delivered directly to your email each day and can therefore read it whenever you have a spare few minutes.

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\  /  MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST    –     http://www.heartlight.org/
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God somehow in his Sovereignty knows just want I need each day to use in my circumstances and seems to be just what I needed for that day!

Here is what one review on Amazon says:

“these profound thoughts were given by Oswald Chambers while at the Bible Training College in England, during the years of 1911 through 1914, and after his death in 1917 (while serving in Egypt during World War I) were edited by his wife, and later updated into modern English by James Reimann, who says in his introduction that the book is the “culmination of approximately 1800 hours of research and editing”, and the end result are words that flow and feed and sometimes pierce the soul with remarkable accuracy, to remind one of the way Jesus intended us to live.”

If you read this in combination with your Bible- you will find its a real change agent in your life.

This opportunity will not come again!

Starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you’ll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/. (That is a minute after midnight on Friday the 12th.)

You’ll also see a notice on your home page with instructions for obtaining your username at that time. Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names. Your username will have the same privacy setting as your profile name in Search

From the beginning of Facebook, people have used their real names to share and connect with the people they know. This authenticity helps to create a trusted environment because you know the identity of the people and things on Facebook. The one place, though, where your identity wasn’t reflected was in the Web address for your profile or the Facebook Pages you administer. The URL was just a randomly assigned number like “id=592952074.” That soon will change.

Facebook usernames will make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you.

So the ramdomly generated ID will be changed to your name (if you get in early enough.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=606955035

http://www.facebook.com/thomas,noon

So the race is on! See you at midnight.

Are you interested in Success in Life?

You can choose to have success.

At the risk of every other post on this blog being completely downhill, here is the BEST tidbit of advice I can think of. This is not some feel good psycho blabber, but rather good old meat and potatoes practical advice you can implement immediately!

Where there is UNITY God commands a blessing!

That’s it?

Yep!

First of all it sounds simplistic. That is because it is! If it were too complicated we’d never get it:-) It is a core principle stated in many ways throughout the whole bible. Unity is the basis of God himself as the Trinity. He says others will know Jesus is truly sent by God by our unity. He calls the church to oneness and unity. Families to unity. Men to unity with one another. So it is simple because it is a foundational principle.

And it works in business, family, friendships, church and on and on.

Plus, it is something we can choose. We choose how to take comments and discussions and what motives we ascribe to others.

This week at work I saw several instances of conflict between co- workers. Usually caused by poor communication and the poor communications were cause by people not trusting each other’s motives so taking offense when none was intended. Then conflict occurred that involved more people picking up offense for the original parties, and on and on.

But when all parties are pulling in unity - amazing things start to happen and the fruit is BLESSINGS.

So today- try this little test. Choose to ascribe good motives to everyone you come into contact with and see the results.

Is your company in trouble?

Join the crowd. The economic recession has put many well run and successful companies on the verge of closing their doors. Layoffs are the norm. Summer jobs for young people are almost non existent. Slashing payrolls have left many homeowners trying to figure out how to keep their homes. Consumer confidence continues to slide and the cycle continues to worsen.

There is hope! There are proven principles to follow in order to stop the slide and in fact be an early turn around success.

I have been involved in several successful turnarounds and will begin a series about these principles and share specific things you can do to survive through hard times.

The first principle is “Cash In“.

Cash In means that every person in the organization must focus on bringing cash into the company. SHOW ME THE MONEY! This must become a primary focus. It starts at the top and must permeate through to the lowest levels of the company. I can not repeat this mantra enough!!!! CASH IN- SHOW ME THE MONEY.

Everything the company does must be rebuilt to make this CASH IN a key metric for survival and turnaround success.

Here are some specific steps and tactics:

1. Build a business model that shows the cash generated or used each month. A business model is NOT a business plan and it is NOT a budget and it is NOT a simple spreadsheet of income and expenses. Without a true business model, you will likely fail!

So what do I mean by a business model? I mean a model you build that recognizes the key Metrics (success factors) of your business and their interrelatedness. If you sell more of X what else changes? When does the cash come in and when does it go out? Are you selling more and enjoying it less because your accounts receivables are growing? The business model should have a page of assumptions that are all in one place so it is easy to do “What If Analysis”. If you change any assumption how does my cash change? The model needs to be built at the detail level so that it provides each month a projected amount for each item on your general ledger. The model needs to be built at a foundational level that shows your UNIT ECONOMICS. Businesses are built on units. A unit may be a location for a franchise; or a publication for a publisher; or a crew for a remodeler; or a product for a manufacturer. Determine how to make each unit function better, faster, cheaper and then replicate the units. But you can not use up cash on a unit and make it up on the volume!

You will want to compare your actual results with the model each month and take the time for a continuous improvement process on the model. How did the model compare to actual results and how does it need to change to do a better job of projecting results? This is a never ending process.

But it yields some amazing results- You sleep better at night; you will understand your business better every month; you will find yourself creating new strategies that improve your Cash In; your outside parties of interest (BOD, investors, banks) will have more confidence in the business; you will deserve the confidence.

What are the benefits of a true business model? A business model lets you brainstorm creative strategies to improve your business. The end point of the new strategy run through the business model is simply, “did I get more Cash IN”? The model lets you target a unit and figure how to make the unit run more efficiently, and bring more CASH IN; then you can develop strategies to expand into more units.

Unless you are running a very simple one product, one person home business, no one can keep all the interrelationships in mind without a business model. I have seen many times where a trusted professional advisor gives reasonable advice, except it is WRONG!

Rather than go into more steps and tactic to bring more Cash In, let me share to an important Turnaround Secret:

You can not survive by cutting costs alone! Cost cutting always lags the economic realities your company faces. The slide and slope is always faster than you can react to… and if you try to react too fast without a business model, you will makes killer mistakes. Negativity is like a shot in the head to a company.

The ultimate Cash IN machine is knowing your business model and interactions between key metrics; understanding your unit economics and fine tuning them; and then…

Developing creative strategies to do more business. The survival and success answer is always about how to do more business that brings Cash IN.

Don’t get me wrong, cutting fat and renegotiating lower costs is very important. I look at every line item and religiously hack away at the cost of our business- but not at the expense of the business model and our unit economics. We have renegotiated and bid out every cost from our phone and internet and other connectivity costs all the way down to the cost of our landscape service. You can get some great deals by companies hungry to generate Cash IN. But cutting 10 or 20 or even 30 or more percent of these costs can not make up for a significant slide in sales.

But here is the good news. All this work to reduce the monthly overhead and improve the unit economics and gain better control and understanding of the business creates a CASH IN MACHINEthat will become very profitable when the consumer confidence does come back!!! Your business can be one of the remaining survivors that will increase market share and prosper in the days ahead.

Check back for more principles and specific strategies and ideas that are proven winners in the CASH IN sweepstakes…..

I have been on LinkedIn for several years and have recognized its a beneficial place to build a professional network of contacts.

Unfortunately, I never put much effort into building my connections.

I procrastinated.

Recently, I decided to put some effort into building professional connections and begin doing a better job of managing my lifelong network of friends and business associates.

In the midst of that process, I came across this nice easy to read e book written by Jonathan Milligan, an executive recruiter from Florida. I could give you a summary, or share some of the ideas, but decided the best way for you to respond is to go to Jonathan’s blog and request your own free copy.

Here is his table of contents:

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Build an Online Network
Why You Should Consider LinkedIn
Linkedin Step #1: Optimize Your Profile!
Linkedin Step #2: Grow Your Network Fast
Linkedin Step #3: Value Your MIC’s (Most Important Connectors)
Linkedin Step #4: Develop a Game Plan
Linkedin Step #5: Track Your Progress
Conclusion 

This is an excellent TO DO LIST of step by step process to building your professional network on LinkedIn.

This is a great guide for anyone, not just a CPA or finance professional!

 Are you looking for a worthy Cause to support with your finances and or time?

I have found one for you!

 My friend Howard Unger is president of Operation Smile and just invited me to have a tour of its headquarters in Norfolk, VA.

I told Howard he must be a good fisherman, because he set the hook then reeled me in.

Operation Smile is a cause based organization and what a cause- changing the lives of little children. OS operates worldwide from modest facilities in Norfolk to provide facial plastic surgery on children scarred from birth. The before and after pictures and videos are compelling.

You can see others on their web site, http://http://www.operationsmile.org/about-us/videos/. WARNING, don’t look at these unless you are willing to have your heart stirred!

As a Christian, I feel this is the kind of mission where the rubber meets the road and men and women and children of many faiths can work together in unity.

God spoke to me like a streaming video download and said, “Occupy My Promised Land.” (OMPL)

I was getting ready to teach an equipping hour class on a new book I had just finished, Marketplace Christianity (see review in this blog). The Holy Spirit sped me through a revelation of what God’s plan for the earth in the coming days looks like and how I am to be involved.

The short and sweet version is - God plans for each of us to be marketplace ministers listening to the Holy Spirit every place our foot steps to occupy our personal part of the Promised Land by bringing His Kingdom into every circumstance.

This video is a good start to understanding the Gospel of the Kingdom.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us how to pray, “Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

God gives us a divine human cooperative to fulfill. He has prepared works for us to do. These He prepared even before the creation of the universe and then He made each of us speficically with the gifts, talents, and even flaws to do these works.

All this is so amazing to consider… Let meditate on this revelation for a little while!

I hate to Lose! 

No, I really HATE to lose!

In sports its been my hardest task to lose gracefully. In close contests I wanted to be the one to take the last shot or be up to bat with the game on the line because I knew how much coming through meant to me, and wasn’t always sure of others.

Am I connecting to some of you?

In business situations this can be a help in not giving up in hard times. It can also lead to conflict when someone on the other side of a negotiation gets into a win/lose attitude rather than a win/ win attitude.

And in my marriage, my avoiding conflict until backed into a corner then coming out with guns blazing to WIN was a dysfunctional pairing of attributes. Rather than building up my wife I was tearing her down. I was supposed to love her like Christ loved the church, who gave Himself up for her that He might present her spotless and blameless before God. I used that with my daughters dates, but didn’t always live it out in day to day life. Probably still don’ do this as good as I should.

So I do hate to Lose.

Unfortunately for me, that’s not how God feels.

The Kingdom principle is that its the losers who are the winners!

 So much of what I read in the Bible could be changed out with Loser. God loves a cheerful giver (loser); The poor in spirit (losers) will inherit the Kingdom of God; Love your wife like Jesus loved the church who gave His life (loser); ……You can probably give a bigger list.

But this LOSER is someone who is willing to Lose his own rights to benefit others, to exhibit sacrificial love for others, to build others up, to bring glory to God.

So I’m trying to learn the Kingdom principle that Loser is the new Winner because in God’s Kingdom is the ultimate fulfillment of the old saying. “He who laughs last laughs best!”