The Dean of Easy Street

     Did your mother ever tell you to always wear clean underwear in the morning. Never know when you’re going to get in a wreck, right?  Wouldn’t do to show up at the local hospital like that. 

    Your mother didn’t tell you what to do if she were the one in the wreck though.  And God forbid, what if both your parents had passed away at the same time. Do you know what would have happened to you? If your parents hadn’t spelled the right things out legally it would get messy very fast.  Think about it. 

     Or better yet listen to what a very savvy young lawyer and mom has to say about protecting your children in her new book. Believe me if Alexis Martin Neeley had written in typical legalese you’d never read it.  Not in a million years. 

     But through a series of touching stories she shows you what could happen if you weren’t able to raise your kids, and what you can do about it, NOW.  Make sure your values and your love are passed on to those you love most. 

     You may not want to think about unpleasant eventualities like this, but it will do you a world of good, and you will be eternally glad you did. That kind of peace of mind is priceless.  “If you want to leave your children financially and emotionally secure no matter what, and never leave their welfare up to chance, ‘Wear Clean Underwear’ is a must-read.” 

    Michael Port, bestselling author of ‘Book Yourself Solid’ & ‘Beyond Booked Solid’   You can get your hands on it today and get a whole slew of valuable, free, family-oriented bonuses too at: 

http://wearcleanunderwearbook.com/ 

  Make Every Shot Count,  Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street 

www.deandelker.com 

 “Money is NOT the most important thing in the world. 

 Love is. 

 Fortunately, I love money.”    

 - Jackie Mason (comedian) 

 But money is the root of all evil, right? 

 Wrong bucko.  It’s not even what the Bible says, much less what it means. 

In older translations 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil”, but even that is misleading. 

The ‘all’ makes it sound like evil equals money. 

Newer translations fare better with: “The LOVE of money is a root of ALL KINDS of evil”.  That’s much closer, but I just got out my Interlinear Greek New Testament, and I’m going to give you the literal, amplified Easy Street translation. 

“A lust (or craving) for silver (shiny things,bling) is a root (source) of all kinds of harmful(destructive, bad, evil) stuff.” 

Now that’s true, because while money is a neutral energy it works like a mirror.  It shows what is in your heart and sends it back to you.  If your heart is unhappy, unfulfilled, and empty money will just multiply your problems.   

If your heart is happy, full of life and centered on love though money will be a blessing in your life, and you’ll use wisely and productively.  It is a tool, and a darn good one if used right. 

The heart is made for love, and if we’re looking for love in money we are digging a long deep well that will come up dry every time. 

There’s probably not a truer, more relevant song title on the planet than the country music classic: “Lookin’ For Love In All The Wrong Places” 

But that’s what most of us do till we learn better.  If you get your love from the Divine though instead of from money, relationships, careers, or anything else, you will have money, loving, fulfilling relationships, and every good thing, and an overflowing abundance to give to others. 

“Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be given to you.” 

The problem’s not the money. It is your heart.  Throw out the fool’s gold and find the real treasure, and your life has to get better every day. 

That’s what you were created for.  Go Out and Play to Win, 

Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street 

P.S.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  I hope you are filled to the max with love today and everyday, and you’ll give it away generously. 

As a gift to you, for FREE daily love quotes and stories please take a look at:  http://www.deandelker.com/daily_insights.html 

Thanks and Blessings.

Have you ever noticed how blocked shots can affect a game of hoops?  It’s uncanny sometimes. 

Psychologically it can affect a team’s confidence and the whole way they shoot the basketball.  Players start rushing shots, shoot off balance, don’t follow through like normal, etc. 

But if you miss any shot isn’t the objective effect the same.  Your team doesn’t score, and the other team has the chance to get the rebound and take the ball the other way. 

But it is different.  Why?  Because our egos are wounded when somebody stuffs us?  Because our opponent is dictating play?  Because our emotions take a bigger hit, than when we just miss a shot?  Probably all the above. 

The same can happen to you in any part of life if you don’t learn to control your thinking and your feelings.  Adversity is necessary for growth.  At least some forms of growth.  It’s how you respond to your adversities that makes all the difference.    So don’t be surprised when things don’t go your way all the time.  Your part is to figure out where the lesson lies.  God’s not mad at you.  He’s just giving you room to grow. 

Go Out and Play to Win, 

Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street 

P.S. One thing that almost always helps when you’re in adversity is to get control of your breathing.  Breathing affects you on many levels and acts as a bridge between your physical body, your soul and your spirit.   You won’t have mastery over your thoughts and your feelings without it, and if you’d like a good primer on taking charge of your own breath check out: 

http://www.deandelker.com/complete_breath.html 

Thanks and God Bless.

The trouble with imagination is we’ve grown up.  We didn’t used to have any problems with it.  Imagination came easy.  Just like all the other play we did.   

But then we left it behind.  Our teachers told us we needed to stay in the reality we can touch and see all the time if we wanted to amount to anything.  And we believed them.  Didn’t think to look at just how happy and successful they were. 

And also some of our imaginary world turned out to be a lie and that was traumatic.  Stuff like Santa Claus eroded our confidence in the unseen world.  Some of us felt defrauded.   And we got away from imagination and dreaming. 

But the most successful among us have learned how to get back that childlike wonderment, turn our work into play, and succeed beyond our dreams. 

Wouldn’t you rather have that? 

Go Forth and Play to Win, 

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street 

P.S. You can’t totally live in your imagination, but that’s where many good things start.  That’s how you open yourself up to the power of the Holy Spirit, for instance. And how you can preprogram yourself for success 

BTW, If you enjoy these little messages please visit www.deandelker.com/products.html and see if there aren’t any tools for abundant living you can make good use of. 

P.P.S. And if these messages benefit you please tell a couple of friends about them, and send them to www.deandelker.com where they can get on our mailing list too.   

Thanks and God Bless.

One of the best kept secrets on the planet is the power of deliberately using your imagination to preview and pre-create your future.  Maybe that’s because too many people equate that with daydreaming.   

Daydreaming is more like visual doodling though.  It’s just your mind wandering.  It’s used as an escape from reality. 

But purposeful imagination is used to affect reality.  It’s a way to make the reality you desire more likely to happen, and it’s been proven time after time, especially in sports.  

If you’re not practicing intentional imagination techniques on a daily basis you’re missing out on some incredible benefits.  It’s a big part of how we co-create our experience in this current universe.  We are made in the image and likeness of God, and this amazing power of  is one of the key ways we express that.  We help create things from nothing.  Well, from nothing but our thoughts which act as the blueprints anyway. 

We are like the soldier on the ground who has to paint an enemy target with a laser beam so a guided missile can zero in on it from above within a matter of inches.   

Our job is to paint our patterns with our thoughts, imaginations and feelings, and God makes it happen through the energetic laws of the universe.  We also have actions to take along the way, but without the right patterns in place our actions will be wasted.   Even working solely in the physical realm this holds true.  The thought and idea and vision for something always comes first.   

When I was in grade school my dad started building my mother a dream house on a plot of land he owned.  He used sub-contractors over time, as he could afford them.  It took 7 years to finish, but he saved a ton of money and got exactly what he wanted.  This didn’t just happen through random action though.  It was his vision, imagination, and action that brought that home into reality. 

And that principle is even more potent in the unseen realm.  Imagination used rightly boosts performance in anything we do.  All too often though we are using fear-based or limited imaginations.  And we end up creating what we don’t want, but we don’t realize the part we played in making that happen.    We’ve got a lot of power, and not knowing how to use it gets us in big trouble, and it makes us feel like victims.  But if we know how to use it we can make miracles and have a pile of fun in the process. 

Go Forth and Play to Win, Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street 

P.S. Next time I’ll turn you on to another reason we have trouble with imagination. 

Remember though, All things are possible to him (and her) who believes. 

I call my new business Delker Brother’s Publishing, but neither of my brothers are involved, except in spirit. 

It’s a family tradition. 

My grandfather Frank Huebner Delker was a plucky entrepreneur who came to work every day till he was in his mid-90’s and lived to be 103.  With 2 of his brothers he started making buggies in the 1890’s and switched to manufacturing furniture after Henry Ford ran him out of the buggy business. 

He eventually bought his brothers out and was president of Delker Brothers Manufacturing Company in Henderson, Kentucky up through the mid-1970’s.  If you like Early American hardwood maple furniture it was hard to beat. 

When I was growing up he ran the business with 3 of his 7 sons.  My dad, an artist, was the creative designer.  One of my uncles was plant engineer, another was the business manager. 

Granddad was legendary for his stubbornness and in his latter years for having very ’selective hearing’.   Whenever anybody disagreed with him on a business decision he believed in, he’d act like he couldn’t hear them. But they knew it was pointless to try to speak louder or enunciate.  It was a signal his mind was made up.   

When it comes to success we all have to have a similar ’selective memory’.    When we’re off course we need to take in the corrective feedback so we can better zero in on our target the next time, but we don’t want to hold on to the memory too long and let ourselves feel like failures.  

You’re not going to be perfect, but if you learn to use your misses to learn something, you will always be improving.  Go Out and Play to Win, 

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street   

P.S. The idea of feedback and zeroing in on your target is one of the mainstay’s of Dr.Maxwell Maltz’ Psycho-Cybernetics Success System first published in 1964.  

Dr. Maltz is no longer with us, but his ideas still produce amazing results today and his work is being carried on by the Psycho- Cybernetics Foundation. 

See what they’re up to today at:  

http://www.psycho-cybernetics.com/ 

God Bless

Now that your turkey is long digested, and you remember how important it is to be grateful it’s time to think ahead to the magic time we call Christmas. That’s where men and women everywhere gather in their churches and homes to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known.

One of my favorite stories has it’s own little miracle.  It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old. Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully.   Now, the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt with hard work and lots of faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.  

But, late in December, a severe storm whipped through the river valley, and the worst blow fell on the church — a huge chunk of rain - soaked plaster fell out of the inside wall just behind the altar. Sorrowfully the pastor and his wife swept away the mess, but they couldn’t hide the ragged hole.  The pastor looked at it and had to remind himself quickly, “Thy will be done!” But his wife wept, “Christmas is only two days away!”   That afternoon the dispirited couple attended an auction held for the benefit of their youth group. The auctioneer opened a box and shook out of its folds a gloriously beautiful, very ornately sewn, gold and ivory lace tablecloth.  It was a magnificent item, nearly 15 feet long. But it, too, dated from a long vanished era. Who, today, had any use for such a thing?   There were a few halfhearted bids. Then the pastor was seized with what he thought was a great idea. 

He bid and won it for $6.50.  He carried the glorious gold and ivory lace cloth back to the church and very carefully put it up on the wall behind the altar. It completely hid the hole! And the extraordinary beauty of its shimmering handwork cast a fine, holiday glow over the chancel. It was a great triumph. Happily he went back to preparing his Christmas sermon.    

Just before noon on the day of Christmas Eve, as the pastor was opening the church, he noticed a woman standing in the cold at the bus stop. “The bus won’t be here for 40 minutes!” he called, and invited her into the church to get warm.  

She told him that she had come from the city that morning to be interviewed for a job as governess to the children of one of the wealthy families in town but she had been turned down. A Jewish war refugee, her English was imperfect.  The woman sat down in a pew and chafed her hands and rested. After a while she dropped her head and prayed. She looked up and saw the great gold and ivory cloth.

She rose suddenly and walked up the steps of the chancel.  She looked at the beautiful tablecloth with remembering eyes.  The pastor smiled and started to tell her about the storm damage, but she didn’t seem to listen. She took up a fold of the cloth and lovingly rubbed it between her fingers, tears welled in her kind eyes. But they were happy tears of recognition.  

“It is mine!” she said. “It is my banquet cloth!”  She lifted up a corner and showed the surprised pastor that there were initials monogrammed on it.  “My husband had the cloth made especially for me in Brussels! There could not be another like it.”  

For the next few minutes the woman and the pastor talked excitedly together. She explained that she was Viennese; that being Jews, she and her husband wanted to flee from the Nazis. They were advised to go separately. Her husband put her on a train for Switzerland. They planned that he would join her as soon as he could arrange to ship their household goods across the border. She never saw him again. Later she heard he had died in a concentration camp.   “I have always felt that it was my fault — to leave without him,” she said. “Perhaps these years of wandering have been my punishment!”  The pastor tried to comfort her and urged her to take the beautiful cloth with her. But she refused saying, “no, no, the cloth has found it’s way to you. You need it. It has a purpose here. I want you to have it. I am happy knowing you have it.” She gazed lovingly up at the magnificent gold and ivory lace cloth, then quietly went away.  

As the church began to fill on Christmas Eve, it was clear that the magnificent cloth was going to be a great success. It had been skillfully designed to look its best by candlelight. The glorious gold and ivory lace cloth actually glowed in the candlelight! It cast lovely fine designs on the walls and ceiling of the church. Everyone looked around in wonderment, and a tranquil ambiance was cast over all.   After the service, the pastor stood at the doorway. Many people told him the church looked more beautiful than ever before. From the generous donations that were given, a few days later the pastor had the local jeweler who was also the clock-and-watch repairman come to repair the church chimes.  The repairman’s gentle middle-aged face drew into a look of great astonishment! As if in a trance he walked right up to the beautiful cloth and looked intently!  

“It is strange,” he said in his soft accent.  “Many years ago my wife - God rest her — and I owned such a cloth. My wife put it on the table” — and here he gave a big smile — “for holidays and when the Rabbi came to dinner.”  

The pastor suddenly became very excited. He told the jeweler about the woman who had been in church to get warm, saw the cloth, and recognized it to be hers! The startled jeweler clutched the pastor’s arm. “Can it be?” he said through desperate tears.  

Together the two got in touch with the family who had interviewed the women for the governess position, got her address, then they both drove to the city.  The jeweler knocked on the heavy, weathered door. As it opened, there stood his beloved wife. The many years of separation were immediately washed away by their blissfull tears, as they held each other in loving embraces, never to be parted again. True love seems to find a way.   To all who hear this story, the joyful purpose of the storm was to knock a hole in the wall of the church.

So dear ones, the next time something knocks a hole in your dreams, your goals - Just remember to have enough faith, enough belief in those dreams and goals, to lovingly and creatively hang your own brilliant lace cloth over the temporary mar. Then watch the miracles come. 

This story was originally written by Howard C. Schade for the December 1954 issue of Reader’s Digest.  It is a fitting way to get an early start on the upcoming Christmas season. 

Go Out and Play To Win, 

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street – www.deandelker.com  P.S. I received this from a website that sends you free daily inspirational quotes and a full-length moving story like this on Fridays.  And I think many of you would want to get your own from the source today so I’ve set up a link at: 

http://www.deandelker.com/daily_insights.html 

Why not tell all those you love today. 

God Bless and Thank You

What’s in a name?

You’ve got every reason to ask. 

I could be a con man, or somebody trying to get-rich-quick for all you know.   

And what’s with all this ‘Easy Street’ stuff? 

Am I promoting laziness?   Am I opposed to hard work?  Well in a sense I am, but I’m hugely in favor of inspired, visionary, productive, playful, purposeful effort that gets superior results. 

I AM opposed to boring, struggling, stressful, grinding, tedious work that doesn’t produce. 

I realize that’s the nature of the curse on mankind in Genesis -  men would have to earn their way by the sweat of their brow, and women too, especially in childbirth which we even call labor.  But we weren’t left cursed according to the Bible. 

Jesus said His ‘yoke was easy and his burden light’.  And in His ultimate act of love on the cross, scripture says He was made the curse for us. Which means we don’t have to carry it anymore.  But often through ignorance or stubbornness we do anyway. 

My intention is to swing the balance the other direction.What I’m all about is exploring ways of operating out of higher power.  Learning how to use inner resources we all have access to.  And it’s much more than the brute force you can exert with willpower on the material plane. 

Thanks for joining me on this exciting journey. 

Go out and Play to Win. 

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street - www.deandelker.com  P.S. One of the best ways to supercharge your work is to to get the most out of your breathing.   If you’re looking for a firm foundation in that make your way right now over to: 

http://www.deandelker.com/complete_breath.html 

God Bless

Sometimes being grateful is a matter of looking for the blessing in mundane matters.  Here’s a list you could consider.

Today I’m grateful for:

A wife who hogs the covers every night, because it means she’s not with someone else.

The son who is not cleaning his room, but is playing Halo 3 because that means he is at home and not out on the streets.

The taxes I pay because it means that I’ve got a good job.

The mess I have to clean up after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends.

The clothes that fit a little too snugly, because it means I have plenty to eat.

The lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need cleaning out because it means I have a home.

The complaints that I hear about government, because it means we still have freedom of speech.

The parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am able to walk, and I have a good car for transportation.

The large heating bill because it means I am nice and warm.

The lady in church who can’t sing to save her soul (not literally) because it means my ears are working just fine.

The pile of laundry and ironing because it means I have clothes to wear.

The aching muscles at the end of a day because it means I’ve had a good workout.

The noisy alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I am alive.

Think of even counter-intuitive things like this to be grateful for and the universe will bring you more good things.  If you did nothing else in the Law of Attraction process except be grateful for what you have you would have a lot more success in attracting more good into your life.

And that my friends is well worth it.

Go Out and Play to Win

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street

On his blog a couple of months ago prolific author and success teacher Dr. Joe Vitale (www.mrfire.com) reminded us how you can move from where you are in life (Point A) to where you want to be (Point B).

The key (which happens to be the name of Joe’s newest book) is to be happy where you are and let that happiness produce inspired actions which get you where you intend to go next.

But how do you make yourself happy? 

What if things aren’t going your way?

It’s no coincidence Happy and Thanksgiving go together like turkey and dressing, because the key to happiness is nothing more than being grateful, i.e. giving thanks.

I challenge you the next time you’re not happy to check whether you’re being grateful for what you do have or whether you are taking things for granted, feeling entitled, and playing the victim. I don’t think you can maintain a truly grateful heart and not be happy most of the time.

And you can always find things to be grateful for when you train your mind to look.  If you’re bummed because you’re $50,000.00 in debt you can be grateful it’s not double that.  You can be grateful lenders trusted you that much.  You can be grateful you have your health. 

So don’t just give thanks one day a year.  Start doing it all the time, and you’ll be much, much, much more happy. 

Go Out and Play to Win,

Richard Dean Delker - The Dean of Easy Street

P.S. And when you can make yourself happy that vibration will attract more to be grateful for and which will then keep you even more happy. But you’ll never feel the absolute power of that rising vortex till you stop complaining and start being thankful every chance you get.