BLISS: A Year of Mega-Growth, Victory

By Terry Carter, Editor

One year ago, I was an hourly employee looking for a better way, a better life with some sideline business. 👀👮‍♂️ I was searching for more hope, health, love, wealth, happiness, contentment and the chance to empower thousands of others.👍😎☯️😃🏌️‍♂️
I was working on weekends and not seeing my wife, as well as missing family events, while not enjoying a get-by job that ignored 95 percent of my talents and potential.
Still I am thankful for that position today because I met winners there who still inspire me to reach higher. The sacrifices of many of my previous jobs confirmed that I am able to achieve more.
🤔🤗I studied my life, my existence and what was holding me back. While it is easy to blame the job, the boss or a negative person, the reality was I was holding myself back and expected failure. However that can be overcome; I know because I’ve done it.
My 2018 New Year’s goal was to do my best, to be more persistent and help more people than ever before. While our best varies from day-to-day and I have not reached a perfect state of excellence (not possible), I made major progress last year.
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Now for 2019. I was blessed to retire from Chevron in March to focus on my wife, children and being a fun grandpa. Suzie and I have traveled extensively. and I have expanded UDPhotos, our 20-year old photography business, and added a consulting business and World Wellness Today to give back to others. 😆🦸‍♂️🎅

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😎Additionally my efforts are now combined with a team of leaders who are traveling together and bringing forth new possibilities. Our family is closer. My health has improved dramatically, and I took 18 trips in 52 weeks last year with 10 of those traveling beyond the Texas borders to great places like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Muskegon (MI), Richmond (IN), Dayton (OH) and Cincinnati, Nashville, Memphis, Orlando and West Palm Beach (FL).
The idea to make substantial changes are based on faith, prayer, hope and love are biblically-inspired. And they took time to go from my mind to my heart.
With the enormous response from you our friends and partners, I hope to invest 2019 to generate the best images to help you tell your life story 30-50 years from now.
If you are looking to survive a battle or find a path to victory in this world, feel free to text, call or email me personally. I’m here for you, and I love each of you. I will help you as long as you help you and work hard.
Some may be surprised to hear about love here, and 24 hours is not enough time each day sometimes. But you will receive my support, teamwork and proven ideas that can work for anyone.
And let me tell you, you won’t believe the mountains we can scale working together as a team of go-getters in 2019. UNREAL is possible now! So smile and run fast🏃‍♀️, fly higher like an 🦅, shine so bright 🌞 and splash down like no other🐋.
This is the year to conquer your fears, pain, memories that hold you down and other obstacles — as I did. We are heading to the very top of the one-percent peak where love and joy radiate contentment and peace.
It will take work, but as a team, we can achieve anything you can image. Email me at UDPhotos@gmail.com or text me directly at 281.541.4983 if you are ready for a hand up in life.

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MASTER LESSON #18: Finding Your Passion

By Terry Carter, Editor

Our nation reached a crossroads and appears stuck in the mud that is littered with hatred, violence and fear. It is not the home of the free, land of the brave any longer.

Our nation has transitioned to the home of the

I just spent Friday with Dr. John C. Maxwell, Rachel Hollis, the CEO of Delta and gritty NFL veteran

WINNING THE GAME OF LIFE, Part 1: Seeing the Unknown

By Terry Carter

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I briefly but adamantly refused to believe that I was going to be taking insulin injections at the tender age of 11 after becoming pretty good in three sports.

My emotions ran rampant because, at the time, this chronic disease tended to own people’s lives, wreaking havoc with both high and low blood sugars and eventually ending their lives prematurely. The doctors not only restricted me to a hospital bed for 30 days, but they also gave me two pieces of news I considered heartbreaking: First, at age 11, I would probably only live 50 more years if — and only if — I took excellent care of my body. Second, I was told would need to return to the hospital soon for more testing and probably surgery on a lump in my neck.

When I imagined how terrible this surgery and disease could rule my life, I responded with complete denial. Not because of the facts, but because of the story I created in my head. The more I looked at the situation and my older brother, who had become diabetic seven months before me, the less I wanted to live with this.

My mom, a registered nurse, responded quickly to my initial signs of a high blood sugar. She was well versed on caring for the ill and played a key role in teaching us to deal with our mandatory, new habits imposed by the diabetic gods.

My dad, a brilliant man in his own right, resorted to blaming the dog for somehow sending diabetes to us.

Regardless I was paralyzed at age 11 for years because of my fears after being a top athlete, an academic leader and a person who stood up for others in our school. Several of my better qualities became overshadowed for years by fears I created about my situation.

Did diabetes cause me to be isolated, shy or less academically advanced? In retrospect, that answer is obvious to me. And I slowly climbed out of my dungeon to marry my sweetheart and contribute to a quality family and a better life. Now with the help of experts, I am making strides toward impacting the world before my time is gone.

In your life, things have also happened that have altered who you truly are. How do you counter a rough childhood, a bully, an abuser, a threat or the burnout that seems so popular among our culture?

I have learned some unique information that may help.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this special series…

FROM RULES TO LIMITLESS

By Terry Carter, Editor

I once heard a story of a newly married couple, and the husband was helping his wife cook dinner in the kitchen of their new home. She had purchased a roast, seasoned it, cut off the ends and put it in a large pan. 

While the oven was preheating, the husband asked his new “Why do you cut off the ends of the roast? It seems like a waste of good meat.” She gave him a defensive look and explained, “My mother has always done it this way – and so did her mother.” Several months later, the newlyweds met the whole family for a big holiday meal. The husband promptly asked the bride’s mother why she cut off the ends of the roast before cooking it. She said her mom had always done it that way, and it was tradition.

After some family talk on the subject, the husband asked the grandmother why she had cooked roast that way. Being an honest woman, she went right to the point and revealed a revalation. “I cut off the ends of the roast because my oven at the time was too small to fit the whole roast.” 

She had sacrificed out of the necessity and passed on this cooking tradition to her daughter and granddaughter. And no one realized the reason or that ovens today are big enough for even the largest roast. It was simply a rule of the day because ovens in the 1940s were small.

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Much of our lives today is run by rules we learned young and still follow, even though those rules may have reached their expiration date or are simply not benefiting us. Look around analytically, and you will see that many rules we expect to be universal laws are not always accurate, such as we must have a college education to succeed. I know many men and women who have not college experience, yet they are successful, in my view.

I grew up absorbing the wisdom of my parents, and my father worked for large corporation, averaging 40-50 hours a week on a Monday-Friday schedule. I only recall him working for perhaps three companies in my life, so the mantra of the day seemed confirmed: Get a good education, work 40-50 years for 1-3 major companies and then you can retire early.

Upon earning my bachelor’s degree, I encountered a changing world that destroyed that ideal career scenario. I was laid off three times in five years in my chosen field. As a result of my desire to control my destiny, I have started or co-founded six companies so far while still staying in touch with the consulting or employee side of my life. 

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Most of us live a life of lies because we firmly grasp these rules growing up. Work hard, for example. Reality is: We all work hard, but only a small percentage work smart and employ the creative genius thereby leveraging their time, talents to get ahead. Fewer still actively create a framework that allows them to pocket millions of dollars while traveling the world in opulence.

I have means and end goals currently, but means goals are more common for nearly everyone because of the rules we heard when young. And you have means goals about career earnings, raising a family, retirement, purchasing a special home and working for a great company.

But end goals are probably where we as humans want to go because as we begin achieving the means goals set by society and our culture, many of us wind up NOT happy at all when we are in our 30s, 40s and 50s. We may have a high-paying career, but we are actually stuck in boring, stagnant positions running from home to work, home to work and home to work.

We have less time with our families than we truly want. And because of that, we often find our relationships at home suffering to the point our spouses ignore us, our children don’t want us around and our pet growls or hisses at us. For millions of Americans, it is the literal rat race, and we are the rat being chased, pressured and squeezed by deadlines, bills, work, home, retirement (if we can afford to consider it) and more.

This is a real-world case. Even with a Master’s Degree as a 1-percent earner and at the top of his or her field, the achievers today are not truly happy. Sure, they look good on camera. But many are struggling to get through each day, wondering why they are not happy with their vaults of money, garages of fine vehicles, multiple homes. And somehow, we sit in our 10-year-old Honda, driving to work from an apartment to a deadend job and believe we have all the answers about happiness. 

The truth is less than one percent of us would be content if our income fell 50-70 percent today because it is way beyond our comfort zone. But layoffs happen, and that is often a 100 percent pay cut. Retirement happens too, and many retirees settle for less than half of their full-time career income.

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So how do we get from “living within the cultural rules” to having limitless options for improvement?

We pay attention to movers like Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors and numerous other major companies. We learn from Richard Branson and Vishen Lakhiani and Michael Beckwith and Marisa Peer. These people are changing the potential for extraordinary achievement by ordinary folks like you and I. They are telling us how to do what millionaires Musk, Branson and Lakhiani have already done.

Lakhiani founded Mindvalley and transformed the company into a industry-leading personal development mastermind organization that is setting the world of achievers on fire currently. I am re-reading his book, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, for the second time in seven days. The hardback version has been highlighted beyond belief because it reveals startling, new information. Since I read 40-60 books annually of business, personalities and improvement, I think I can safely say this book is probably the best book I have read in decades. 

Jack Canfield, co-author of the best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul, said it bluntly about Lakhiani’s book. And Canfield is an expert on this type of writing: “Vishen Lakhiana’s knowledge base and his ability to present it clearly and to actually put it into practice is above anyone I have ever seen in this field.”

Lakhiani has many unconventional suggestions. But when it comes to finding the end goals that lead you to your desired destination in life, he mentions these:

1. What experiences do you want to have in this lifetime?
2. How do you want to grow?
3. How do you want to contribute?

(More on this topic soon)

BEFORE I DIE…

By Terry Carter, Editor

I just finished watching a 6-minute video at Ted.com by New Orleans artist Connie Chang. If you are not aware, Ted.com is a popular website where sometimes inspiring, sometimes groundbreaking ideas are shared in short snippets. Many are calls to action.

Connie’s talk centered around a large chalkboard put up in a neighborhood with the beginning of a sentence and space for the community to fill in their personal answer. The introduction is: Before I Die, I Will…  The website for is http://www.BeforeIDie.cc

While the chalkboard allowed for one line of handwritten completion, many scrawled entries beyond the formal spacing. The canvas was filled in fewer than 24 hours. Now you can find “Before I Die…” walls in Houston and around the world.

In support of Connie’s idea to transform a rundown, abandoned home into a constructive location, I want to chip in my input. I am confident that it too will exceed the formal spacing allowed although it may not match the first signer Connie highlighted. That was a man dressed as a pirate, scribbling: “I want to be TRIED FOR PIRACY.”

Still, here is my personal list.

Before I die, I want to:

1. Live my life fueled by hope, faith and love
2. Inspire greatness through God’s will
3. Show love, appreciation daily to my outstanding, wise and talented children
4. Celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary with the only woman in my world
5. Break 35 minutes in a 5K run — hopefully all downhill and with a gale force wind
6. Write more than 25 books
7. Play golf in the United Kingdom with Rory, Jordan and Tom Watson
8. Financially support life-changing organizations like: Archway Academy, Cornerstone Recovery, the American Diabetes Association, The Bruce Lee Foundation and many more
9. Contribute to world peace with my unique gifts
10. Share positive family stories for my children to cherish and my grandchildren to adore hearing

Friends, my list is a bit extreme, I admit. But I have always dreamed of accomplishing great things. My wish for you is that you will join me in posting your “Before I Die” list. 

WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?

By Scott Thornton

Like many married couples, raising wonderful children and watching them grow into outstanding adults has been very rewarding for me.

But it leaves a query in its wake: OK. You accomplished that major life goal. What’s your next purpose on this planet? The witty answers you have already conjured up are OK for some, but they are annoying bluffs or distractions in this writer’s card game.

I ask this as my world — or at least my control of it — slips away. Am I destined to accomplish little in this life? Or is there greatness yet on the horizon? 

Am I destined to live in a dumpy apartment until they raise the rent annually to $2,000/month, and I am forced to sleep on the street?

Like you, I have worked hard all of my life. I have worked for Fortune 1,000 companies and others. I have worked 100-hour weeks, invested my own money and hours into helping others and starting businesses. But, at times, it seems I have failed to reap the common rewards.

 The road of life is windy and mysterious. Think you have it figured out, and time will tell you differently. This lovely piece of road once caused a radiator leak and flat tires for many vehicles.

I am the content type — thanks to God — but with a burning desire to improve myself on a daily basis. To reach goals, you must first write ambitious, but real-world goals. Then you construct a strategy of daily, weekly and monthly activities that will reach the written 6-month or annual goal. 

Despite being thankful and content with my current hand of cards, I know there is room for dramatic improvement. Where are the kings and aces in this game? 

Am I destined to just accept the circumstances that smack me in the head every week or two? My reply is hell no. In fact, I agree with Bruce Lee’s famous response to repeated frustrations in the movie industry. The famous Lee line is to the point and powerful: “To hell with circumstances! I make my own opportunities.”

This concept is for Type-A personalities only, and please bring a partner to help keep the books and cash straight if you launch your own business. 

As for true purpose, however, I find it seems to diminish as your age increases. It explains why grandparents retire and often feel lonely in their final years unless they have family close by on a regular basis. My children are currently out of the house now. That part of my existence is complete, and playing grandparent has not started yet. 

I’m fine with that and will not rush the arrival of grandchildren. It will happen in God’s time, and I am to spend my time on health, golf, running, reading and writing. But are those purposes? I think not.

The quandary continues for now…