I love breakfast. If I didn’t also love fine dining so much, breakfast would probably be my favorite meal of the day. Through years of exposure to nutritional guidance, including becoming a Certified Health Coach with Dr. Ray Strand’s Healthy for Life organization (use Discount Code cejco to get 20% off), I also recognize that most people do themselves a disservice in their food choices at breakfast time.

Here are some simple guidelines to follow to make breakfast your most healthful meal of the day:

1. Don’t skip breakfast! It fuels your furnace and jump starts your metabolism, allowing you to burn more calories throughout the day. They say you should eat something almost immediately upon arising in the morning. I am not there yet. I do enjoy savoring my first few cups of coffee before I can even think about food, but by 8:30 or 9:00 I am ready for breakfast.
2. Ultimately, eat whatever you want, but pay attention to how your food choices make you feel. I love bacon and I love hash browns. Neither of these is particularly healthful. But eaten in moderation, and truly savored, I don’t deny myself these treats. I do monitor how I feel after eating them, though, and I invite you to do the same.
3. Avoid cereals. With the exception of whole oatmeal (stay away from instant anything), breakfast cereals are probably the worst thing you can put into your bodies. For the most part they consist of the two ingredients we all need to limit: refined bleached flour and various forms of sugars. To add insult to injury, the milk we put on them is mucous-forming. (Ever wonder where that nagging clearing-of-the-throat comes from?)
4. Likewise, avoid breakfast breads: doughnuts, danish, cinnamon rolls, etc. These are all high-glycemic, give you an initial energy boost, bring you crashing down, and make you ravenously hungry for more. If you find yourself starving in the middle of the morning, you probably ate something high-glycemic for breakfast.
5. Eggs are good. Wait a minute! Don’t they raise cholesterol levels? Friends, dietary cholesterol is not where we get our elevated levels of cholesterol from. If anything, our overconsumption of refined bleached flour is the culprit.
6. Plain yogurt is fine, but the flavored versions typically contain more sugar than is advisable. And absolutely avoid those brands that contain artificial sweeteners. As a rule of thumb, I avoid any food that calls itself “Diet,” “Lite,” “Low-Fat,” “Low-Carb,” or even “Healthy Choice,” because what these products tend to use instead (or as fillers) is typically far worse for us.
7. Fresh fruit is great. Fruit juice is good but not great. Rule of thumb: The closer a food is to its natural state, the better it is for you.
8. A breakfast shake is an alternative, but most of these are high-glycemic, too. The only brand I recommend is USANA’s Nutrimeal. All of USANA’s foods (even its Rev3 energy drink!) are low-glycemic.

To reiterate the main point, definitely have something for breakfast, preferably low-glycemic to give you sustained energy throughout the morning.

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So what does this have to do with the 29^th chapter of Proverbs? Absolutely nothing. There was only one verse that stood out to me this morning, and I really didn’t want to go where it would have taken me. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but it does seem to point to the economic dampening effect of high taxes:

By justice a king gives stability to the land,
but one who makes heavy exactions ruins it. (Prov 29:4, NRSV)

August 25 brings the 25^th chapter of Proverbs. Two passages stand out, having related messages:

With patience a ruler may be persuaded,
and a soft tongue can break bones. (Prov 25:15, NRSV)

If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you. (Prov 25:21-22, NRSV)

I noticed at a very early age the power of a “soft tongue.” My parents had two very different styles of discipline. My mom criticized and punished my siblings and me with great regularity, while I can count on the fingers of one hand the times my dad disciplined me. In her defense, Mom was a Coast Guard wife, running the household on her own for months at a time whenever Dad was on a mission at sea. The stress she lived under, especially in the earlier years of their marriage, must have been enormous.

Still, of the two, my father’s discipline always carried much more weight. He was (and still is) a very soft-spoken man, slow to anger and full of love—despite the regularity with which his children, his grandchildren, and now his great-grandchildren screw up … myself included!

Nothing we did was ever good enough for Mom; yet our very existence was a gift of joy to Dad. Lest you misunderstand me, I love my mom with all my heart and I miss her terribly (she died nearly eight years ago). I have nothing but compassion for her, for I recognize that how she was raised as a girl was simply carried forward to her own children.

Enough rambling. Back to the texts at hand. Have you noticed that it is often the soft-spoken people in a room who command the greatest attention? Most people go around tooting their own horns, yammering away under the assumption that the people they’re talking to (talking at, really) are listening. Sadly, most of us aren’t listening; we’re contemplating what we’re going to say when the person gabbing away at us comes up for air.

But when a soft voice begins to cut through the clamor, a hush soon falls over the room. Clearly, this person has waited to speak, so let’s listen up!

And don’t spend a lot of energy plotting your revenge on people who have wronged you. As the second passage suggests, kindness will go a lot further in “heaping coals of fire on their heads” than animosity. In an ideal world, they will experience true remorse and want to make things right with you, otherwise “karma” will take care of things with “What goes around comes around.”

Either way, justice is served—and we’re not responsible for meting it out.

Practice speaking softly, listening actively, and suffering wrongs with grace and kindness. Then share your thoughts below.

With the exception of two verses in the 20^th chapter of Proverbs, I didn’t find much to blog about this 20^th day of August. Instead, allow me to “vent” about two separate incidents that happened this week involving deceptive come-ons.

“Bad, bad,” says the buyer,
then goes away and boasts. (Prov 20:14, NRSV)

I get a chuckle every time I read this 14^th verse of Proverbs 20. It is so true. We all want to enter into win-win negotiations, so making the seller feel good about a transaction is simply good business.

At the same time, there can be too much deception. I received a phone call earlier this week from a woman I met several years ago at a public speaking seminar. After a brief amount of small talk, she asked me, “Are you open to additional income opportunities?” After I replied truthfully in the affirmative, she explained that she was having someone make a presentation at her home the following evening and asked whether I would be interested in attending. Having heard this particular nebulous pitch on numerous occasions before, I asked her, “Is this XYZ?” (I’m obscuring the actual three-letter acronym, in case any of my readers are actively engaged in “XYZ” and love it.) To my surprise she told me she didn’t know. I found this odd, since it seems to me that she would know. Nevertheless, I gracefully bowed out.

Friends, I’m all for learning about income opportunities. At the very least, they’ll make it into my book, Demystifying Prosperity™. All I ask is that you be up-front with the business opportunity you’re promoting. I am. I never withhold any information about my primary network marketing company. It’s either a good fit for you or it isn’t. My being secretive about the details isn’t going to change that.

The next day I received an email about a system that would help me generate leads into my primary business. This is a good thing. I feel very strongly about my primary network marketing opportunity, and I’m interested in learning about any ways to help promote it. Several emails, phone calls, and webinars later, I still don’t know the exact details about this “system” (something involving a pizza box) that will generate me $497 or $1497 or $3497 per person I sucker into it.

Folks, I want to promote my primary business, not some “system” that causes people to shell out significant money simply to further the system itself. I told the gentleman my concerns, and he said he could share with me more specific information about what exactly would come with my financial outlay. I asked him to email me links to the websites in question. To my amazement, he told me he would not. Instead, he asked me to phone him when I got back home (he called me on my cell phone while I was out running errands). Once I was back at my computer, he would then email me the links. He explained that spam filters mean that his emails often do not get delivered, and that I needed to be at my computer to verify that I received the email.

I’m sorry, B____, but you lost this sale. He has already successfully emailed, me, meaning that his email address has already been whitelisted. This is pure manipulation.

Folks, if you’re promoting a legitimate opportunity, there is no need for such deceptive practices. Be up-front with your prospects. Answer their questions. Send them to websites where they can learn more information. When I signed up with my company, I did my due diligence … and I liked what I found out. My ideal prospect would be someone just like me, someone who does his or her due diligence, someone who asks all the appropriate questions, someone who signs up only after ensuring that this is indeed the right opportunity. That’s the sort of person who will run with this opportunity all the way to the top.

I suppose the opposite extreme is someone who reveals too much:

A gossip reveals secrets;
therefore do not associate with a babbler. (Prov 20:19, NRSV)

I met with a woman yesterday morning for the purpose of learning more about her businesses and telling her about mine. She definitely had the gift of gab. Not only did she “vomit” information about her businesses on me, she felt the need to interject periodically while I had the floor. This is not the way to win friends and influence people. As I mentioned in a recent post, we have two ears and one mouth. Let’s all learn to use them proportionately.

Happy networking! Feel free to share your joys and tribulations below.

As always, I encourage my readers to check out the entire chapter of the day. This 19^th day of August I am using the 19^th chapter of Proverbs as my inspiration. There is much wisdom in this chapter, as in the entire book.

One verse stands out to me, however:

To get wisdom is to love oneself;
to keep understanding is to prosper. (Prov 19:8, NRSV)

What does “to get wisdom” mean to you? How about “to keep understanding”? Share your thoughts below. I’d love for this one verse to be the impetus for a lively discussion.

My own take is twofold. First of all, how about reversing the order of the first part of verse 8: “To love oneself is to get wisdom.” Love of oneself is indeed a necessary component of wisdom. We spend so much time beating ourselves up. I know I do, and I suspect I am not alone in this. What’s past is past. The future remains to be written. The only reality is now. If I don’t love myself now, I have nothing, and wisdom certainly eludes me.

As for the second part of verse 8, any time prosperity is mentioned, I perk up my ears. And yet this phrase baffles me. “To keep understanding is to prosper.” I want to prosper. What do I have to do “to keep understanding”? Let me know, God, and I’ll do it.

What does this mean to you? Wax poetic on what is required to prosper. Who knows, but it is entirely possible that what you write below will make it into my book, Demystifying Prosperity™.

The 14^th chapter of Proverbs is longer than most, and yet there is one verse that stands out from the rest:

In all toil there is profit,
but mere talk leads only to poverty. (Prov 14:23, NRSV)

“Put your money where your mouth is.” This popular saying is a bit more blunt than the beautiful poetry in Proverbs, and yet the message is the same. In my own words, I often find myself saying, “The Universe rewards action.”

I owe much of my personal development to Ken Roberts. Years ago I ordered his “TWMPMM” course on trading commodities. It is technically very informative. To my delight, however, I discovered that Ken is on a spiritual path similar to my own, and so he also teaches the importance of nurturing a prosperity mindset, otherwise the technical information will be a waste of time. Remember the lottery winners who are worse off a year later than they were immediately before their big win? This is because of a scarcity or a poverty mindset.

Ken wrote a fun little book titled A Rich Man’s Secret. In it is one of my favorite quotes:

Take the first step, no more, no less, and the next will be revealed.

Imagine yourself driving at night in the dark. Although you can only see a few hundred yards in front of you, you continue driving forward, albeit cautiously, trusting that the road will be well marked. As you progress along the way, the next hundred yards appear, and then the next, and then the next.

The important thing is to move forward. Resist inertia. Take daily action. Do something, anything, to bring you closer to your goals. We all have the same amount of seconds in a day. Let’s not squander a single one of them.

Share your thoughts on this topic below.

The 13^th chapter of Proverbs contrasts the rich and the poor, with a side contrast of righteousness and wickedness. Two passages caught my attention and should make for interesting discussions.

The first is a bit humorous:

Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing;
others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.
Wealth is a ransom for a person’s life,
but the poor get no threats. (Prov 13:7-8, NRSV)

I am reminded of the book The Millionaire Next Door, where the authors posit that rich people who flaunt their wealth are actually in the minority. Most wealthy people wouldn’t be recognizable from the rest of us. This has been my experience, and I am thankful for such positive role models that wealth needn’t puff one up. In contrast, the Brit-com Keeping Up Appearances has a great example of the opposite in “social-climbing snob” Hyacinth Bucket.

Verse 8 adds another twist to the mix. The wealthy have the means to pay their own ransom, but the poor have no need for it. Perhaps this is another argument for being less obvious with one’s wealth.

The second passage that caught my eye is the following:

Wealth hastily gotten will dwindle,
but those who gather little by little will increase it. (Prov 13:11, NRSV)

I could write a whole chapter on this. There are countless stories about lottery winners who are worse off a year later than they were before their big win. It seems that we humans rarely handle an abrupt change in socioeconomic status well. But as the saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race.”

In network marketing (and Internet marketing and affiliate marketing), some choose to market their opportunities as ways to become wealthy, the implication being that this transformation will happen virtually overnight. The proverbial “get rich quick” scheme generally produces wealth only for the schemers.

I have never presented my network marketing opportunity this way. To the contrary, I am often brutally honest in admitting that the commission checks will probably be low (or nonexistent) at first. So keep your day job! However, the only way to lose in network marketing is to quit. You really can’t help but succeed if you build your business little by little with daily activities. And as you add people to your network of distributors, then the earnings start compounding.

But the best advice I can give someone considering network marketing is simply to join a company that resonates with you. This is essentially word-of-mouth advertising that these companies are paying us for. People see through fakes right away. Find a company and a product you believe in. Then you can’t fail.

And don’t expect to get rich quick. I see people making this mistake all the time. When riches don’t appear fast enough for them, they jump ship and switch to another opportunity. Almost invariably, that one will disappoint them, and they switch to yet another, and another, and another. (Sadly, I know this from personal experience, as well.) Every time they quit, they put off their ultimate success. Fortunately, I came to my senses a few years back and have been focusing on only one network marketing opportunity. It happens to be the one I started with eight years ago. Sigh.

Instead, do your due diligence up front. I can help you with that. The good news about my sampling many opportunities is that I’ve been exposed to lots of different types of businesses. If mine does not resonate with you, I can point you in the direction of another. Contact me for a free consultation.

And add your comments below to continue the discussion.

Today’s passage is quite short, but there’s a lot packed into this single verse:

From the fruit of the mouth one is filled with good things,
and manual labor has its reward. (Prov 12:14, NRSV)

The second half of the verse is perhaps self-explanatory. Manual labor does indeed have many rewards. I do a lot of head work, which means that I spend lots of time sitting like a lump in front of my computer. Whenever I actually get up from my chair and venture outside to work in the yard or do something else with my hands, I always marvel at how much better I feel afterwards. Also, there is often a sense of immediate accomplishment when I finish a “manual labor” project, whereas much of my head work takes much longer to complete: months or even years.

But it’s the first part of this verse that really catches my eye whenever I read it. In recent years I have spent a fair bit of time and money learning the various techniques that Internet marketers use to make money online. There are affiliate programs, where you get a cut for promoting someone else’s product or service. There are lead-capture pages to entice people to disclose their names and email addresses for future marketing purposes. And there are any number of scams. I’ve seen them all.

The real money lies with those who generate original content. Whether you’re a programmer and your creation is the next must-have iPhone app, or you’re an author and you’re writing the next bestseller, it is those who actually create the products that earn the most. If you wish, then, you can set up an affiliate program and build an army of Internet marketers to market your products.

Original content is also what the search engines are looking for. I am often cajoling my Web clients to start blogging … or to blog more than they already are. Pepper relevant keywords throughout your posts, and people are sure to find your websites. I continue to be amazed by the people who find my own various websites, and this blog in particular. Fresh, original content makes all the difference.

“From the fruit of the mouth one is filled with good things.” Indeed.

What does the fruit of the mouth mean to you? Share your thoughts below.

For an in-depth look at the power of the word, I invite you to (re)read my blog post of June 8 titled “The Power of the Word.”

There was no doubt in my mind which passage of Proverbs 11 would be my topic this 11^th day of August:

Some give freely, yet grow all the richer;
others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.
A generous person will be enriched,
and one who gives water will get water. (Prov 11:24-25, NRSV)

There are any number of reasons—from psychological all the way to metaphysical—why this is eternally true. The more we give, the more flows into our lives. The more tightly we cling to what we have, the less room we leave in our lives for anything more to come in.

My freshman year in college, some dear friends of the family told me about their practice of tithing. I was touched by their dedication, so touched that I adopted the practice myself, and have been doing so ever since. Early in my career, even though I was giving away a tenth of my gross income (yes, I decided that for me, gross income made more sense than net income, although I invite you to use whatever calculation works for you), I always seemed to have enough. More than enough, in fact. I couldn’t possibly prove it, but I have always felt that I have experienced more prosperity in my life than my peers have, directly related to my self-imposed generosity in the form of tithing.

This has been a challenge for me in recent years, with zero personal income. I have wanted to give more, but I am still technically a tither. Ten percent of zero is still zero. As my business begins to pick up once more (thanks be to God), I know I shall begin to make positive contributions once more.

My fellow network marketing evangelist Randy Gage is also a fan of tithing, as I learned several years back at one of his events in Boston. And this needn’t be a religious obligation to be effective. In my own case, only a portion of my ten percent has gone to my faith community. We all have our favorite charities; let them be the beneficiaries of your largesse.

Quite frankly, it is less important whom you give to, than simply that you give. Be generous with your time, your talent, and your treasure. I guarantee you will receive many times over what you give away. That’s one immutable law of the universe that crosses all faith boundaries.

Try it. You’ll like it. And share your experiences with me (and with your fellow readers) below.

It’s the 10^th day of August, my 10^th post this month, and I am using the 10^th chapter of Proverbs for insights and inspirations. Although each day’s meditation stands alone, I direct the reader to my post of August 1 for an introduction to this month’s exercise.

The book of Proverbs shifts with chapter 10 to a series of “Wise Sayings of Solomon.” In general, the chapter deals with wickedness versus righteousness, and you’ll enjoy reading the entire chapter through.

Certain verses speak to me, for various reasons. The first is this:

A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
A child who gathers in summer is prudent,
but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame. (Prov 10:4-5, NRSV)

All too recently I have learned the need to produce, to provide a solution to people’s problems. Having pretended to be “semiretired” for a time, I am now back in full force. I wish to make this world a better place for my having been here. That won’t happen if I sit back and do nothing. What are you providing that is adding value to our world?

The next verse is a great illustration of the power of love over hate:

Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses. (Prov 10:12, NRSV)

The following verse throws a monkey wrench into the need for diligence, especially when substituting the text in the footnote, as I have done:

The blessing of the Lord makes rich,
and toil adds nothing to it. (Prov 10:22, NRSV)

My take on this paradox is that diligence has its own rewards, and yet blessings can never be earned. There is cause-and-effect in this universe, but the Universe is not a puppet to be manipulated. What are your thoughts on this?

Finally, there is this wonderful verse:

Like vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes,
so are the lazy to their employers. (Prov 10:26, NRSV)

This is a great argument for a home-based business with no (outside) employees. I can help you with this. Just ask.

The 8^th chapter of Proverbs is a pæan to wisdom. Any time material prosperity is mentioned in Proverbs—or elsewhere in the Bible, for that matter—I take note. These verses jumped off the page to me (italics mine), with Wisdom speaking in the first person:

I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
enduring wealth and prosperity.
My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,
and my yield than choice silver.
I walk in the way of righteousness,
along the paths of justice,
endowing with wealth those who love me,
and filling their treasuries. (Prov 8:17-21, NRSV)

The books of Job and Ecclesiastes notwithstanding, the Bible often equates material prosperity with a life of faith, truth, perseverance, etc. This is personified in some sources as Lady Wisdom.

Forget the Bible for now. What does “wisdom” mean to you? This is perhaps a more important question than what wisdom means intrinsically. The promise is that if we pursue wisdom we are rewarded with peace and prosperity. What do you see yourself pursuing that would result in peace and prosperity? I invite your comments below.

And having defined wisdom for yourself, what are you waiting for? Go for it!