The Lifeworks Group, Inc.

By Aaron Welch, LMHC, NCC, CSOTS It’s that time. Yes, THAT time. The moment you have dreaded for years. It is time to teach your teenager how to drive. It is the time for you to step into two tons of glass, steel and plastic and hand the keys to someone who, fairly recently, needed you to tie their shoelaces for them. It is the time for digging your fingers into the car door, pushing a brake pedal that is not there, and using a paper bag to cope with hyperventilating. Yet someone, somewhere made up a rule that said a person with out-of-control hormones, a still-developing brain, and very poor impulse control should have the privilege of driving. All kidding aside, teaching teenagers the art of driving can be very anxiety-provoking for many parents. Because of this, learning to drive can also be very anxiety-provoking for many teens as well. That’s not so good because the last person I want to be on the road with is one who lacks confidence and has the anxiety lev...

By Aaron Welch, LMHC, NCC A Sons Need To Feel Valuable To His Father My last article focused on the growing issue of mother/son conflict and the response I have gotten has confirmed the trends I am seeing between moms and their boys. However, it is important for me to note that the relationship between fathers and their sons is still primary to emotional health and the overall development of boys. In this article, I want to caution all of us dads out there to make sure we don’t put the “cart ahead of the horse”. You know, make sure first things are first when dealing with our sons. This is a sensitive area because the truth is that many of us guys don’t have a clear idea of how to build a healthy relationship with our boys. The reason for this is because many of us had fathers that were equally uncomfortable in the process of building intimate relationships. It is so true that many of us grew up with dads who were much more comfortable in their roles at work than they were in t...

With great sadness we share that Jim Rohn, our mentor and friend, left us December 5, 2009 for a better place. Over the past 18 months, in his battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis, Jim assured us with a smile that all is good, that he would fight until the last breath, yet he had no fear as to what would be next. Jim’s faith was as much a part of his life as his desire to inspire and challenge us all to be the best we could be and to live our dreams. Jim’s courage in his final months and days were a testament to his message that we should all fight the good fight. He never gave up and never gave in. Jim Rohn touched millions of lives over the past 46 years through his seminars, books, articles and CDs. He always stayed long after an event t o shake hands, take pictures and sign autographs. He loved making a difference in people’s lives, that was his passion and inspiration. Yet he was also a private man who kept a small, loyal and caring inner circle. He was a tremendous friend to those who ...

by Dr. John C. Maxwell A train travelling 55 mph on a railroad track can crash through a 5-foot thick steel-reinforced concrete wall without stopping. That same train, starting from a stationary position, won't be able to go through an inch-thick block in front of the driving wheel. It is never the size of your problem that is the problem. It's a lack of momentum. Without momentum, even a tiny obstacle can prevent you from moving forward. With momentum, you'll navigate through problems and barely even notice them. As a leader, your responsibility is to understand momentum, to get it moving for your organization, and to sustain it over time. Momentum can be tricky to comprehend, though, often appearing elusive and intangible. In this article, my goal is to give you handles so that you can better recognize how to generate momentum in your workplace. To help you grasp the concept of momentum, I'll outline ten momentum breakers alongside ten momentum makers. Momentum Breake...

by Master Coach Jim Rohn Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day. Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters. On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds. If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes. Why...

The benefits of having a leader come alongside to achieve greater results By Dwight Bain, NCC, Founder of the LifeWorks Group of Counselors & Coaches Last week I was honored to spend some time with Dr. Elmer Towns, co-founder of Liberty University, and a man who mentored me during graduate school. It was a great experience to catch up with an old friend, made even better because I could introduce him to Sheila and our teenage children. It was a blessing to hear this mentor to so many, sit and spend time talking to our kids about the value of having godly leaders who come alongside to invest in your life. While you may never have met Elmer Towns, so many things I do to help people today, I learned by watching him interact and mentor others back then. When I met this man over 25 years ago I had no idea how much he would impact my future. There is an old saying I heard once that said, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” Often you may not realize the tremendous value b...

the Dangers of being a Good Samaritan by Dwight Bain, Nationally Certified Counselor & Certified Life Coach “Don’t take life so seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive,” was the simple advice I saw on a greeting card once and it makes sense, especially when thinking about the incredible pressures placed on those in the important role of caregiver for a loved one. You’ve got to lighten up the load to prevent major burnout. Many times it’s easy to overlook just how tired, frustrated or angry someone feels when they are buried in the dozens of day to day tasks required of a primary caregiver. This special report is designed to help you spot the warning signs when you’ve done too much for too long and don’t have enough energy left in the tank to help anyone, including yourself. There was a popular song many years ago that had the lyric, “he ain’t heavy- he’s my brother” which isn’t exactly accurate. If you are piggy-back riding your brother, sister, child or any other family member...

By Dwight Bain, Certified Life Coach & Nationally Certified Counselor Change... it is a part of life that we don’t like to face. Oh we may speculate on what it would be like to live some where else, move to another house, take another job in another industry, move away from mom and dad, or marry our 'dream date'. We like to talk about the big changes that we may go through one day; but let's face it. Most people hate to go through a major change. I think we tend to avoid change like the plague; even though we know in our heads that God will ultimately use change to grow us into a stronger person through the process. Some of the changes in life are predictable. Losing our first tooth, the independence that comes from a driver’s license, graduation, moving out on our own, and other expected stages of life. Some changes are not pleasant, but equally common. A new-born baby not sleeping well and the parents struggling to find the energy to cope with an infants contin...

by Zig Ziglar, best selling author "Without hope what good is tomorrow?" We are surrounded by people who need hope in their lives. We don't often see their need because a lack of hope is not easily communicated. People aren't prone to say, "I need hope." Nonetheless, when we listen closely, we can hear the cries of the hope-needers. Or oftentimes we can see it in their actions. For example: The student with no hope of passing won't study. Why bother? The sales person with no hope of making the sale won't make the call. What's the purpose? The couple whose marriage is in trouble won't seek counseling because (they think) it's all over anyway. The relative who hasn't spoken to you for three years won't try. What's the hope? The senior citizen who doesn't think anyone would be interested in helping him won't ask. The nurse who doesn't think anyone appreciates her wisdom won't offer it. The manager who doesn't ...

-How to break out of circle arguments to find peaceful connection By Dwight Bain, Nationally Certified Counselor & Certified Life Coach “It’s your fault!” “No it’s yours!” “Oh yea, well you’re a bigger one!” And on, and on the conflict goes. It’s what I call a circle argument because it goes around and around and never really gets anywhere and everyone ends up feeling bad. Sort of like a seriously dysfunctional merry-go-round except a lot more dangerous- it’s what I call the “Crazy Roller Coaster of Conflict.” Are you a roller coaster fan or do they just make you fearful? I’ve found that most people are clearly on one side or the other, so let me ask it again. Do you really love the twists and turns of giant thrill rides or does it seem completely crazy to you? If you absolutely can’t get enough of coasters you are not alone. Almost 300 million people visit theme parks every year and many of them are roller coaster enthusiasts. They love the excitement of a controlled setting that ...

By Aaron Welch, LMHC, NCC God has really been speaking to me lately. Yes, really. Amazing as it sounds for a man who has been a Christian for 31 years, I am just now learning that God still speaks to us, if we will only listen. For years, I don’t think I fully believed this…..that we could really hear the Lord’s voice. I just thought that God only spoke through the scripture….an attitude that results from being raised in “the age of reason” where anything of the heart is portrayed as naïve at best and, at worst, a trick of the devil. It never dawned on me, until recently, that this attitude does not fit the God portrayed in those very scriptures. A God that actually states, when choosing David as king, that He looks MOST to the heart, while man looks at the externals. A God who continued to speak to and through the disciples even after Christ ascended to His throne. The question I never asked myself is, “why would He stop now”? Well, I’m not sure why it took me so lo...

The death of the Reverend Jerry Falwell on May 15, 2007 brought a flood of emotions to my mind… since he was one of my first mentors and for a season he was my pastor. You see, I was a student at Liberty University in the early 1980’s, a school I chose in part because of the leadership and communication style of Dr. Falwell. I saw how effectively he was able to carry a positive message to the community through media platforms and wanted to learn how to do the same. I admired his courage to stand on biblical principles to teach what he strongly believed to be God’s truth on traditional values. By God’s grace, and the help of a lot of friends I was selected to a leadership position as student body president of the graduate school and seminary, which allowed me to have a great deal of behind the scenes access to Dr. Falwell. I saw that he was a visionary, totally focused and goal directed no matter what the circumstances. He was a tremendous mentor who made a huge impact on my life. Here ...