success – Dave Brebner

25 January 2021

How to drive forward… and leave the past behind us.

I read a book recently. Regular readers of my blog know I am an avid reader, I even write book reviews!

This one though, it really got to me.

It is called Forward by Dr David Jeremiah. In his book, Dr Jeremiah makes an excellent analogy of driving a car to direct our lives.

I’ll let you know upfront, Forward, is a faith-based book. What I really liked about it is that he makes some brilliant observations that we can all learn from, regardless of our spiritual beliefs.

13 December 202013 December 2020

The Value in Mistakes

I have often written about the need for us to be gracious and forgiving to our younger selves. We often, surprisingly, give less mercy to ourselves than we would to others.

As a person with, often extreme OCD, I will mull over things that I did many years ago that I consider foolish and stupid in reflection.

How about you? Are you one of the many of us, in a certain generation, that is thankful that we did not have cell phones with cameras back then recording our every moment? All of those slips and stumbles in judgement from our lack of maturity in those days.

22 October 202013 December 2020

Winning or Losing?

How many times has a fiery argument been lost and then the winner is proven wrong later?

In my younger years, I would vehemently defend a position, only to find another factor that I had not considered cut it down.

But lately I have become more considered and reflective in my approach. Time and the compounding interest of experience must be allowed to do their work.

21 July 202021 July 2020

Nurture Your Mind Today

I think we all know that it is important in times like these to ‘guard our hearts and our minds’. Today I watched the news and let’s say it did me no good.

I questioned, do we need to stay ‘informed to the minute’ about that for which we have no real control?

Today I want to encourage you to stay focused on the good things. Many of the people we all regard as heroes did not rise in times of ease or great prosperity; in fact, we wouldn’t probably call them heroes if they had!

17 December 2019

Thank you and see you in 2020!

In a mood of review, I am writing to thank you for reading my posts this year. I hope that you are finishing up 2019 well and can look back with happy affection to the year that has almost passed.

In reflection, I am reminded of the good things, especially those things that I take for granted as if they will always be there. It easy to fall into a sense of comfort that these joys will always be there. Don’t we all do that a little? Yet at this time, I am reminded of how much I do not truly show gratitude for them.

I want to thank my family for being there and particularly my beautiful wife Rhonda. She quietly works behind the scenes without fuss and is a model of consistency and hard work. She is truly what I call a ‘saint of the mundane’ whose work and cleverness makes the household function and whose kind, honest and unassuming nature makes its members shine brightly in the world.

At this time, I am reminded of how much we need to cherish ones such as her, our children and the many friends we have who, in many small ways, make life as sweet as it is.

15 October 201916 October 2019

Reflecting on Life

How often have you found yourself metaphorically lighting the lamp in the dark and hoping it’s a candle and not a stick of dynamite?

As a year nine drop out with Tourette’s syndrome, I was forced into a position of choosing life as a victim or a victor. I thank God every day because those circumstances have formed me and made me take risks that have enabled me to push beyond the potential I thought I had.

I have tried some really, really dumb things. But I have also succeeded beyond what people thought I could.

I have neurological disorders handed down from both sides of the family line; however, I have learned to avoid the destructive actions and indulgence in those things that would lead to the continuance of those symptoms in my own life.

As a person with Tourette’s syndrome, I can be ‘grasshopper minded’ as my Father used to describe me, flittering from one obsessive idea to the next.

7 August 20197 August 2019

Where is your Focus?

Focus is an important skill. Focus and persistence can get you through the darkest days until you can find the light again.

Through the persistence of my parents who never gave up, a few lifelong friends who saw past my Tourette’s and a large church youth group who fed my soul with a great social life, I came to life.

I was able to respond to challenges in my thinking that allowed me to reach towards my potential.

I love the story that Dan Miller writes in his blog about himself and a 10-year-old friend, Bob. They were out in the neighbouring farms and his friend got bitten by a snake.

As his friend was incapacitated Dan’s first instinct was to go after the snake and give it the retribution it deserved for biting his friend. Bob, however, did not pursue the snake but settled down to dealing with the wound by lancing the bite and sucking and spitting out the poison.

17 May 201917 May 2019

Rest and Awareness

The only common denominator in the many success stories I have read about is summed up in one word: Persistence. Alter your dreams and know when something is not the right path and let it go.

We know how important persistence is in our successful career lives.

The only common denominator in the many success stories I have read about is summed up in that one word: Persistence. Alter your dreams and know when something is not the right path and let it go.

We must take time, however, to put the brakes on and examine our awareness regularly.

In his book ‘High Trust Selling’, Todd Duncan talks about the inner world of a person being exceptionally important when it comes to establishing trust in a client’s mind.

He talks about his ‘Law of the Iceberg’ where he says that like an iceberg that conceals 90% of its mass below the water line, we need to practice integrity, trustworthiness and good healthy relationships in our secret lives.

He infers that all too often the lack of maintenance of the hidden non-public life ends up boiling over into our public lives and destroying credibility and authenticity that we need to display as a person selling a product or service.

Have you ever been approached by someone who uses all the right words but something in your gut just screams ‘yuck’!