Empowerment Language is used to self-empower rather than self-sabotage. Making statements based on TRUTH (self-empowerment) rather than LIES (self-sabotage) opens the creative process. When we use Empowerment Language it creates a solution model rather than a permission model.

Permission Model

*    Muted tone of voice and distant

*    Closed and ashamed body language

*     Soft and sporadic eye contact

*    Doubtful and weak attitude

When a person is working from the Permission Model, they are working from the victim role. They are looking through the typical glasses or lenses that haven’t been challenged. The Permission Model creates a set of behaviors that are not working for the individual. It is like running into walls time after time, all day long.

In the Victim Role, a person has Blind Spots that are getting in their way, they have a tendency to Blame Others, they get stuck in the “I Can’t” Excuses, and they sit for a period of time in the Wait and Hope mode of life. The “Whoa is me!” attitude.

When you are working from the Permission Model, what do YOU create in your life?

Solution Model

*    Strong and direct tone of voice that is convincing to self and others

*    Body language that is tall and proud and communicates confidence

*    Firm and continuous eye contact that ensures security

*    Confirming and believable attitude

Working from the Solution Model, you are creating a new set of behaviors and communication that are working for you. Let’s call it the Behavioral Method. The Behavioral Method is a specific structure of external and internal experiences, which consistently produces a specific behavioral result. It is when your thoughts, communication, and your behaviors are congruent. This would be working from the Accountability Role.

In the Accountability Roles, there is an Acknowledgment of Reality, the person will Own It the situation and their own part in it, they will Find Solutions to the situation and they they will GIG IT (Get It Going).

When you are working from the Solution Model, what do YOU create in you life?

Last night a gave a presentation to a group of Focus Seminar graduates entitled “Creative Communication”. It seems that every time I talk about communication I have some more insight of how to grow through effective communication so I wanted to share some of it with whomever takes the time to read this blog.

Based on a study of communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 (Kinesics and Communication, R. Birdwhistle), the researchers determined that in communication, 7% of what we communicate is the result of the words that we say, or the content of our communication. 38% of our communication to others is a result of our verbal behavior, which includes tone of voice, timbre, tempo, and volume. 55% of our communication to others is a result of our nonverbal communication, our body posture, breathing, skin color and our movement. The match between our verbal and non-verbal communication indicates the level of congruency.

These research results has always astounded me when I think about the way that I communicate on a daily basis. Is also has helped me identify the areas where I run into conflict with my communication. It all goes back to the way that I filter and process events that are taking place around me. If we are not careful, we will filter and process the events based upon experiences of the past and the result ends up being less than desirable.

The illustration to the right represents how we process the information that comes into us from the outside. An event takes place and is observed through the five senses. The event is then taken through an internal process that can skew and distort the event itself. We then respond with communication and behaviors.

The first filter is the BELIEF SYSTEM. These are the generalizations about how the world is. Those beliefs that back you in a corner and fail at allowing you to see from a new point of view. This belief system contains the values that you hold in high regard. Beliefs are the assumptions that we hold about the way the world is that either empower or destroy our perspective. Beliefs are essentially our ability to create what we want in the world. In the process of working with someone’s beliefs, it is important to find out what beliefs cause you to do what you do. We also want to find out the disabling beliefs, the ones that do not allow you to do what you want to do.

The JUDGMENT filter is based upon the values we hold in high regard. This includes judgment of the event, person, and self.

As information is filtered through the belief system and judged, it is EVALUATED based upon the filter.

RESPONSES may create beliefs, or may just affect our perceptions through time. Some of our responses are unconsciously made based upon previous experiences. Our responses can be made up of the defense mechanisms that can get in our way. Our response puts us in a certain state. The state in which we find ourselves, will determine our emotional reaction and behavioral reaction.

What were some of your beliefs, judgments, evaluations or responses that get in your way of life?

There is an invisible line in our lives that determines which side of morality we fall on. When it comes to morality, there is a right and there is a wrong. There is a moral law we have distorted in order to make it more comfortable for our everyday lives. It’s my belief that this tolerance creates confusion to all. Young children cannot understand the moral tolerance that some of us lead with. Young children will follow what the adults around them display, not necessarily what they say…and there in lies the tolerance. What would it be like if our actions matched up with the moral convictions that were rooted in truth? When we have rules without clear understanding it creates rebellion in a young persons life. When we follow up our rules with relational understanding, our children connect with truth.

When my daughter gets in her strong-willed stance and decides that no one is going to tell her what to do, I have a decision to make…lay down the law and the rules and leave it at that…or get down on her level and build a relationship with her that communicates loving discipline. I don’t know about you but I didn’t have a lot of clear understanding of why things are happening when I was a young child. I was to do what was right, even though I didn’t necessarily understand it.

I believe that when we close the gap on the tolerance, we start seeing fruit in our lives that creates clarity and direction. We start surrounding ourselves with people that are accountable for their actions. Our mission in life starts to be unveiled when we get clear on what we will tolerate morally. What will you tolerate around you? Will you stand for truth or will you let your morals slide?

I have witnessed first hand a clear picture of the decline in morality that is around us everyday. It’s my guess that a good percentage of folks do not even examine their morals before taking action on decisions in their lives. Just recently I have experienced teenagers and twenty-somethings being positively reinforced for the lack of examining their morals before making life-altering decisions. Unfortunately, many of those teenagers and twenty-somethings are being taught their immorality by watching the adults in their lives.

What are we pretending not to know? Somehow I believe that people truly believe that they are going to escape the consequences of immorality. That they are bullet-proof to the gun of life! We believe we are entitled to happiness and peace yet are not willing to put forth the obedience to get there. Our microwave society that screams I want it and I want it now lacks the patience to do what it takes to create the happiness and the peace desired. This moral way of life is not popular, it doesn’t look like our wordly view of fun, but it sustains life storms without fail.

When we are clear with our morals and our values, the everyday decisions of life become much easier to make. I challenge you to be weird this week! Examine and obey your morals and claim the victory that is waiting for you!

Happiness is temporary, but joy is eternal. Happiness depends upon outward experiences, but joy comes from within.

This quote from Adrian Rogers hit me over the weekend and I have been processing as I start this week. No one can take our joy from us…we can only give it away. There are many things that influence my happiness on a daily basis but how often do we consider the joy that is still present within us.

The word happy means “lucky,” and comes from the word hap which means “chance, fortune;” sense of “very glad”. In World War II the word happy was actually used to define a state of being “dazed or frazzled from stress.” I don’t know about you but I don’t want to lean on lucky, chance, fortune, sense of very glad or dazed or frazzled from stress. I want to lean on something that sustains……JOY!

If you put your trust in happiness, you will fall victim to circumstance because your happenstance will change. Happiness is like cosmetic and joy is like character. What will you lead with today?

I have used the 5 Love Languages book for quite a while and most of you have probably read it (if not go get it). It’s always good to have a reminder…take the profile below:

Today celebrates the day of 7 years of marriage to my beautiful bride Stephanie. As a memory of what brought our hearts together, today’s post is a story that we wrote for our wedding day. Stephanie, let’s continue to live intentionally!

Bryan and Stephanie Vignery's Engagement Picture

When God creates two people who are destined for each other, sometimes its many years before their paths actually cross and the introduction is made. Our paths were definitely destined to cross, and this is a story about the journey leading up to the start of two lives together.

Bryan’s Journey

I was living a life of uncertainty for many years spiritually. I found myself in and out of relationships with surface level connection that I unconsciously new was not right. As I continued to grow Spiritually, I found the more that I let God’s love in and the more I was obedient to the words that are given to each and everyone of us from the Bible, my life continued to become filled with more and more peace and joy.

In October of 2001 I was feeling a similar anxiousness that was familiar to me during another chapter of my life. The anxiousness was a sense of change brewing inside of me. Something was about to change and I felt the change was going to take place at the first of 2002. Little did I know just how much my life was actually going to change!

On January 2^nd, 2002, I found myself like many others, out of a job. I knew at this point the change that I felt just a few months before was coming to fruition. God was bringing in front of me a “new chapter” of my life’s journey. I was physically holding on to a relationship that I had been emotionally detached from for quite some time. People had told me many times that God was not going to bring me the right woman to marry until I get out of the relationship that I was in. With this on my heart and the loss of my job, I needed to get away and clear my mind. I was invited to go on a trip to Miami with my mentor and friend, Gary Kuzmich. It was a business trip for Gary and a soul searching trip for me. God had always seemed to use Gary to wake me up in the past and I believed God was now looking at the situation and saying, why stop a good thing?

On this trip I met a man that I will refer to as a messenger. We got to know each other in a short amount of time and talked about where my life was and all of the changes that had been taking place. I also talked about how my relationship with my girlfriend was just not working. He told me that he felt I was going to meet my future wife through this thing called Focus Seminars. He also affirmed that until I got out the relationship that I was in, it wasn’t going to happen.

After returning from Miami I met Gary for lunch and we talked about where I was at with life. I told him that I was just not happy and he directly said to me, “when are you going to get out of the relationship you are in? It’s not working and you are just hurting yourself and the other person.” I had heard these words many times but this time they hit home and I decided that I was going to move forward in my life without the current relationship.

The next morning, I volunteered to help out with the Focus Seminar that was already in process. I walked in the room where the seminar was being held and noticed a beautiful woman that caught my attention. I never had any conversations with her until the end of Focus II when I spotted Gary, of all people, talking with this beautiful woman. Her name happened to be Stephanie. That was the day that my life was changed forever.

Stephanie’s Journey

In December of 2001, I knew God was preparing me for a new chapter in my life, a plan that God only saw and desired for me. I was at a point in my life where nothing was working for me in my relationship. I was in a relationship of four years that was not going anywhere. It was draining me of my personal happiness as well as the relationship. I felt stuck. I was doing everything humanly possible to keep it going and could not. I had always desired to have that spiritual connectedness with a spouse, and it just was not happening.

After we broke up, I was searching for peace and joy that I knew God can only give.  I decided that the best thing for me to do during this time was to pray and go on a spiritual fast. During my spiritual fast my Aunt Carol confirmed to me that fasting was a way to show obedience to God and to find peace in life’s problems. She said that a 21 day fast was to break a habit and a 40 day fast was for new beginnings. I was definitely in need for a new beginning, so I turned my 21 day fast into a 40 day fast!

During this time, I was starting to feel more at peace within myself as well as with the trials I was experiencing. I found out about a personal growth seminar called Focus Seminars. A client had shared it with me, and I thought that it might be an answer to some of the things I had been praying about. Little did I know that I would eventually go through the seminar and it would help me heal from my broken relationship, not mend it. I was supposed to go to this seminar for myself and no one else. I truly believe that God works in ways we can’t see.

In January of 2002 my friend MaryAnn and I attended the seminar without knowing what was to come of it. During the first Focus I portion of the seminar, I began to write down characteristics of what I wanted in life and a husband. I found out that the relationship that I was in would not fulfill the things that I wanted and prayed for. I completed Focus I and felt a new energy in my life. I was seeing things more clearly and heard God tell me that I should not make any decisions before the end of January. I took those words to heart and continued to look forward to Focus II.

In Focus II God revealed a messenger to me.  He was a man in my focus group that represented a lot of what I wanted in a man when I saw his heart towards God and his wife. It gave me hope that I would meet someone with those similar qualities. It encouraged me to see that there are men out there that believe the way I do and I don’t have to settle for anything less than all that God desires for me.

Not only was Focus the greatest thing I have ever done for myself, but the icing on the cake was on Thursday January 24^th, 2002 the man of my dreams walked in the door of Focus and I asked myself, Oh my gosh, where did he come from? I also mentioned that I would love to marry a man like that.  He was incredibly HOT and his whole demeanor was full of life and energy. I figured he was taken and didn’t think anymore about it. His name was Bryan and I felt a place in my heart was reserved just for him.

The Meeting of Soul Mates

Our eyes connected during that day during Focus Seminars and it sparked a journey of personal change for both of us. It was the beginning of two hearts that were ready and willing to demand more out of life and to find out what unconditional love truly means. Due to our commitment to the Focus process, Stephanie and I agreed to wait 30 days before we went on our first date. As we counted down the days till our first date, we both had time to process and plan the journey we were about to start.

The first date happened on a snowy January Monday night in a restaurant in Westport. As we looked across the table at each other, we expressed the character traits that we desired in a significant other. I looked at Stephanie and asked her if she believed in love at first site, because that was what I was experiencing. It was so powerful to look in each others eyes and know, on the first date, that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.

Here we are today continuing to grow individually in our relationship with God and as a couple. We are excited to begin the journey of becoming one in God’s name and to influence those around us to look at the potential that is within each of us. We are two people coming together willing to take on the challenges of life and to live a life being 100% according to God’s words as written in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I’m honored to have an article written about me on examiner.com. Check it out here: Top Life Coach in Kansas City area.

I encourage you to check our some of the other articles on the site and thanks for following my blog.

The rear view mirror of our life holds many things. Looking into the rear view mirror of life can be motivating and awakening if there have been intentional steps taken on our journey! As I approach a milestone birthday in life I believe now is as good as any time to look into the rear view of life at the intentional steps that have positioned me right here, right now!

From the time I was 10 years old I was searching for something significant in my life. I searched many places high and low and got hung up in many behaviors that were potentially destructive. I thought that I had found significance a few times along the way, only to find out that it was selfish desires that were getting in the way. I kept plugging through life knowing there was something greater that I was created for; although I didn’t really have an understanding of what that was or how to attain it. Why out of all people should I have purpose? The REAL question was……WHY NOT?!?

The past doesn’t define me but it did allow me to be molded into who I am today. Molded into a man that can be used for the greater good. I can write this article, safe from the destruction that could have been, and in an awesome place in life because I have a purpose. There was a plan for my life even when I didn’t understand that plan. All of the years of searching for something greater paid off. That something greater for me has been understanding and embracing a relationship with God. He created me and He created you for a purpose greater than our human understanding. He is enough! I am enough!

Embrace your rear view mirror today and allow it to propel you into embracing what He created you for….You are enough!

Those things that bother you about someone else could be just your answer to happiness! What?? Yes, you heard me correctly. Have you ever though about why we find some people annoying? Consider this…things that we find annoying in others may just be a reflection of what we do not like about ourselves!

For example, a person may say:

It is really annoying how Sally is always gossiping about other people.

This person may be projecting, as a defense mechanism, a behavior which they dislike about themselves…gossiping!

Now I’m not suggesting that everything that annoys you about another person is a reflection what you dislike about yourself, but it is interesting to think about. If we can decipher those things that are actually a representation of what we do not like about ourselves, we can be a step closer to the desired happiness after we deal with it!

So, what is bothering you?