Stop, Look and Listen!

In first grade we had it drummed into us to Stop, Look and Listen before crossing a street. It was probably the most important lesson we learned in first grade. Lately, I have been thinking again about the need to Stop, Look and Listen. See how well I grasped the concept in first grade?

In first grade I had to Stop, Look and Listen when I went out to play “hide and go seek” around the large bushes in our play area. There seemed to be two girls who really liked me and kept chasing me and trying to kiss me. I only wish that had been part of the rest of my school years.

On our morning walks my wife and I see a lot of wild life. We have lots of quail in our huge back yard, because we feed them. The quail will suddenly run like crazy for under-covering of a pine tree or one of the thick gardenia bushes. The one “big daddy” quail watches faithfully while the others eat and gives out a Stop, Look and Listen warning when something is not as it should be during ‘breakfast”. No doubt a hawk or roadrunner was present and the quail must hide fast.

Not long ago, we watched twelve javelinas cross the road ahead of us. One larger one waited in the middle of the road while the others crossed safely. He must have been trained to Stop, Look and Listen by the crosswalk school attendant. On the other hand, some jackrabbits need training.

Another time we had to shoo a very healthy coyote off from getting ready to jump our neighbor’s wall to pick up yet another plump chicken for his growing family. We have a particular interest in keeping him from that task, since our neighbor has supplied us with eggs from her free roaming hens. Hens don’t seem to have been taught the meaning of Stop, Look and Listen. They seem to rely on the rooster who is no longer in the yard, having served his time as fried chicken.

Not too long ago on the walk, I turned my head to the right to see one of the neighborhood’s great horned owls. As I did so and turned back to my walk, I noticed I had veered from the left side of the road and was about to be hit by a car from behind and one from the front. I was right in the middle of the road. My attention had been drawn toward the owl. I did not Stop, Look and Listen and had almost been run over by anxious drivers on cell phones eager to get to work.

The moral of all this is that our focus can get out of whack when we forget to stop for a moment, look at what we are really doing and listen to our training and our Trainer for re-calibration in thinking and directions. My advice is to remember first grade and take time to Stop, Look and Listen!

Knowledge Explosion!

I admit I am part of a counter-culture in our society.  With knowledge exploding every day, teachers, parents, businesses and even school publishing companies often get sucked into the philosophy that we just need more knowledge.  The problem is that most of us need to have skills first to make use of the knowledge.  Only then can knowledge be transformed into wise choices. In this present period in history, we can find out just about anything from the internet. How we use or eliminate what we learn will lead to success or failure; good or evil.

None of us can do everything we would like to do. Our purpose in life becomes more important with exploding knowledge and expectations.

Successful people concentrate on their present purpose in life. Their expressed purpose might change as time goes on, but specific, written goals to achieve seem to be a constant given in their life expressions.

I remember reading about Walter Russell, who was simultaneously a famous painter, sculptor, philosopher, writer and scientist. Five different areas of expertise! His personal plan to accomplish such extraordinary success in all these areas was to work with determined focus on one vocation for only 2 hours each day, thus working ten hours per day with focus, excitement, purpose and satisfaction. It wasn’t necessarily the knowledge he possessed in the beginning which created success, but the vision and imagination of what could be accomplished with skills developed through his focus on each discipline. One example is his sculpture of the “Four Freedoms” requested by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear.

Over the years, some of my employees have wanted me to expand to include, history, science, art and other types of tutoring. It could be done, of course, but I have personally selected the tools of reading/spelling/comprehension and math so necessary in order to excel in the other areas of instruction. Encouraging self-confidence and eliminating learning challenges is the goal. We get results when we remain focused on our purpose!

Knowledge is good, but the use of it is more important. Hitler had knowledge, but his wisdom on how to use that knowledge was warped and evil. Don’t be intimidated by the knowledge explosion. Live with a positive purpose in life with your knowledge focused for good!

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Albert Einstein

Strategies for the New Year....Continued

As we discussed creating goals and writing them down last week, I did the same activity in my own business and life. Below are My Goals and Plans for the year. 

What are your Goals and Plans? I would love to hear them in the comments below! 

Strategy #5: Next, I begin to put them into categories.
1.    Personal Mental Development
     1)   Read one book every week which challenges my intellect.
     2)   One lesson each day with AdVocab (a higher vocabulary learning program)
     3)   Keep a daily journal of the things for which I am most thankful.
     4)   Read Success Magazine, BNI podcasts and literature and other business helps.

2.    Spiritual Growth
     1)   Follow a plan to read through the Bible in one year.
     2)   Study a different book each month on spiritual subjects.
     3)   Teach from what I am learning in church or seminars.

3.    Physical Enhancement
     1)   Sleep at least 8 hours per night and take a 15 minute power nap after lunch.
     2)   Meet with a physical trainer every other month for evaluation and new tasks.
     3)   Daily walks of at least one mile.
     4)   Far-infrared Sauna 5 days per week.
     5)   Weekly and daily Cardio and strength-based exercises

4.    Family and Marriage Desires
     1)   Family Dinner one Sunday afternoon per month
     2)   A weekly date night with my wife
     3)   Find ways each month to bless our children and grandchildren.

5.    Business Plans and Goals
     1)   At least 30 students Attending Stilwell’s Learning Center each week.
     2)   At least 10 Distance Learners each month.
     3)   Stick to the prepared budget for 6 months and review.
     4)   Employ and train 2 part-time tutors and 1 part-time office manager.
     5)   Contract to Webmaster and Face book manager.
     6)   Develop a weekly plan to receive referrals from current clients, former clients, schools, churches, clubs, BNI, etc.
     7)   Take one visitor per month to BNI.
     8)   Interview on a Friday Community radio broadcast.
     9)   Consider 15 second ads on radio stations when budget allows.
     10) Speak to a club or other venue at least once per month.
     11) Develop website blogs to boost internet presence.

6.    Recreational/Vacation Plans
     1)   Train trip to California with wife and granddaughter.
     2)   50th wedding anniversary in Frisco Colorado in August.
     3)   Healing is Here Week at Charis Bible College, Woodland Park, Colorado.

7.    Civic Responsibilities
     1)   Research different community volunteering possibilities, such as city council meetings, Helping homeless children, Salvation Army events, BNI benefits, etc.
     2)   Tithe to Church and give offerings to orphanages in Mexico and U.S. and Africa.

These will become the nuts and bolts of my schedule and my everyday business and personal life framework for the New Year. Month to month, I might make changes, deletions or additions, but it will still be the basis for a tracking record for the year.

Strategies for the New Year

Every year at this time, most of us set goals or write hopes and dreams for the New Year. New Year’s Resolutions! Zig Zigler used to quip that he would always wait until March to start again with the gym workouts, because by then the parking lots would not be as full. Unfortunately, that is about the amount of time resolutions last.

Amazingly, when I sit down and carefully think through my hopes and dreams and quests for the New Year, I find that most of the past year’s goals have been accomplished, even when I don’t always look at them again after first taking time to write them down. Here are my personal strategies concerning my 2017 New Year’s goals or resolutions:

Strategy #1: I make a distinction between a vow and a resolve. A vow is often a negative form of a resolution. For instance, I can make a vow never to be upset ever again. Well, the first time I might get upset, it backfires by accusing me of being a failure. If, on the other hand, I resolve to be more patient with myself, the first time I become upset with myself, I look at it as part of my learning curve. After all, Babe Ruth struck out more than he hit the mark, yet it was the batting average that placed him in the hall of fame.

Strategy #2: I carve out several hours at the beginning of January to think about the past year and be thankful for what has actually been accomplished in my life. Usually, it is a humbling experience, because I find that more often than not the accomplishments were not only of my own doing. I think God initiates the ideas and at the same time gives an order as to how they might take place. I realize how much I depend upon partnering with people who are there to help me with the dreams and goals.

Strategy #3: I admit to and take responsibility for the failures of the past and let them go. They were mine, even though often caused by outside influences. It will not do any good to take them with me into the future, though I can learn to avoid similar failings in the coming year.

Strategy #4: I begin to write each goal or resolution or desire just as they come to me. I can always polish them up later. The object is to first have a vision and WRITE IT DOWN. Later I can make it plain and give it feet. If I don’t write it down it gets lost with all the myriad thoughts that go through my brain.

Strategy #5: Place my goals or resolutions into categories. (Next week) 

Christmas 2017

Christmas is a fascinating time of year. Think about how it was in Galilee and Judea during the days of Herod the “butcher King” and Caesar Augustus, who proclaimed a census to take place over the Roman Empire.

Mary, young girl who is barely child-bearing age is promised to her legal husband, Joseph, but not permitted to have an intimate relationship until he had been approved by the family of Mary and probably Mary, herself.

Mary appears to be in a direct line of impressive forebears, as well as Joseph. The messiah, the anointed one with the anointing of God, was prophetically promised to be in the line of the great King David. Surely this would be no problem since Joseph was in the direct line of King David. Yet, the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, the long sought messiah of Israel, were otherwise.

Joseph honored God and had a heart open to the things of God. He appeared to have a heart of mercy. When he found that his betrothed wife was pregnant, he surely was broken-hearted at first, yet did not want to see his seemingly “unfaithful” wife stoned. So, he devised a plan to quietly divorce her.

The girl, Mary, had encountered Gabriel, an archangel of God, who told her she was going to have a son who would deliver his people and be the redeemer of mankind. There are enough verified instances of angels even in our modern day experiences to no longer doubt the scripture about the veracity of angels. They are God’s messengers.

Mary readily accepted the angel’s pronouncement and tells him she is honored to be the Lord’s handmaiden. She probably didn’t understand all he meant when he told her she would conceive, not through Joseph or any other man, but that the Spirit of God would impregnate her. However it is not hard for us to believe that she knew the moment it happened.

She followed the lead of the angel and goes into the hill country to check if he was correct that her aging cousin, Elizabeth, was already in her sixth month of pregnancy with the one who would become John, the baptizer. Perhaps Mary wanted to make sure she wasn’t going crazy. Sometimes we can believe something for the moment and question it in the distance of time.

As it turns out, the moment she crosses Elizabeth’s threshold the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy in the presence of the seed of God in Mary’s womb. Elizabeth gives her famous and awesome prophetic word concerning Jesus. Mary magnifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior.

She seemed to understand that she was the one who would be called blessed, by becoming the mother of the Messiah, who would have all the DNA necessary for a man, except there would be no necessary chromosomes signifying a human father. Instead, he would be born of a virgin by the supernatural touch of our Loving Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit. The one to be born would be Emanuel, God with us, Redeemer of Mankind and his name would be Jesus, Savior.

When you celebrate Christmas or even Hanukah this year, realize that you are celebrating the true Light of the world. The One who’s light never goes out. The one who promises that the darkness which seems at time overwhelming at all its levels of evil intent will never put out the Light of God. The prime factor of light is that in it, there is an absence of the “dark side”.

The Light of the world is still Jesus, the Creator who became a child with the blood of the Loving Heavenly Father; who came to die for the entire world’s sinful iniquity and to redeem mankind and make a covenant as a man with God Almighty in our behalf. Then he died and rose from the dead, conquering death itself.

That’s the God/man who is no longer a babe in a manger and who we celebrate on the fascinating day called Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah Light!

We Get Results!

As report cards are delivered and end of the quarter approaches, remember to not get discouraged with your child's current results! We are here to help you and there's still time to get those grades up before the end of the school year! We Get Results! 


Many years ago, a parent asked the school principal why after several years in special school programs, her child made no progress and in some ways regressed. Then she said, “I finally took my child to Stilwell’s Learning Center and he has progressed several grade levels this past year.” The principal remarked, “Well, they do get results!”

Since that time, our byword or branding has been We Get Results! Here are some of the reasons I believe we get lasting results:

1. No matter whether a student is diagnosed or suffers from ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Disabilities, spelling, poor reading accuracy, poor reading comprehension, poor grades, poor vocabulary or learning frustration of any kind, we believe every student can learn to excel. We don’t put roadblocks of impossibilities in their way. Dyslexic students have completely conquered dyslexia. ADHD does not have to remain a problem and new focusing skills develop. The characteristics of different types of Autism have decreased and the student has begins to excel.

2. We diagnose for causes rather than just symptoms.

3. Many children have been “dumbed down” by harmful medications given for non-diagnosed or misdiagnosed ADHD.  It appears much of the medication often destroys brain cells and takes the natural curiosity, ingenuity and energy away from those students. Parents complain that their child is no longer the pleasant creative person he/she used to be. The grades might improve, but usually the root cause of learning problems still emerge the next year to be a problem all over again. Omega 3 supplementation is just one example we suggest parents investigate. Sometimes students seem to change overnight with such natural supplementation. Our learning programs also help eliminate dyslexia and ADHD and many other kinds of problems.

4. Encouragement is one of the key elements of our tutoring methods. Encourage, Encourage, Encourage. 

5. To get really good results, we also use a method call Auditory Visual Impression Pairing of information. Every 2-3 minutes the student works on a completely separate exercise in reading or math, increasing their focusing skills while impressing the brain to retain the information that has been sealed by both auditory and visual input and application.

These are just a few reasons we get solid results with children, teens and adults. With our specialized type of instruction, students receive, lock-in, and retain information as well as build logical connections which help restore even damaged areas in the brain. 

Encouragement and Persistence

Over the years I have witnessed the importance of both encouragement and persistence.

When I was a teenager, I was given the task of building an addition onto a home. The wealthy business man came home on the weekends and instructed me for the work week ahead. It was to be an adobe house with a tile roof and decorative tiles on the steps and entry area.

In order to even start on the project, I had to dig out a very tall and mature palm tree. I must have worked on that tree with my pick and shovel for hours, when the lady of the house came out with some much needed lemonade in the 110 degree sun. She told me I needed to rest and drink the lemonade. Actually, I had just heard a voice for the 3^rd time call my name. It wasn’t her. I had just realized it was somehow God speaking to me to get out of the sun for awhile when she came with the lemonade. I was determined to get that tree loose and out, but encouragement was what I really needed to be refreshed, both mentally and physically. The home was later written up in a magazine as “an island in the sky” with a Latin beauty to it.

I remember once, helping a 2^nd grade girl with penmanship and sound-blending words. She had many learning difficulties and found writing and following instructions very difficult. As we do with all of our students, I kept encouraging her and showing her how to form the letters correctly and blending the sounds of the words without stopping her voice. After awhile she began to succeed. A glow came over her when she realized she had finally spelled the words correctly by sounding them out and writing them correctly. It was only her second day at Stilwell's Learning Center and she was already feeling more confident.

Another time, while I was in the grocery store, a parent of a former student proudly told me her son was now taking pre-med courses at the university. This student had also needed much encouragement and training in persistence. In turn, her comments encouraged me that I had been a help in preparing him for his life goal to be a doctor.

If you are in a position to encourage a child, a young person or even an adult, just think how it might influence him/her. You are an important person in the life of that person. Don’t underestimate the power of encouragement to mold a spirit of persistence into someone in need!

"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to it until you get there." Harvey Mackay