Life’s Third Certainty: How to Grow Through Change

Someone wisely said that the only two things that are guaranteed in this life are death and taxes. Well, actually, there's one other thing and I'm going to share it to you on this week's podcast.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rome, and on this week's podcast, I want to share with you a third item that is very consistent that we all will deal with sooner or later. Years ago, when I was growing up, I heard someone say, well, the only two things that are guaranteed are death and taxes. And then of course, everyone is trying to stay physically fit to avoid death sooner rather than later. Most people want to live a long, healthy, productive, successful life. However, sooner or later, the best I can tell from everyone I've ever known in my life, it is true, people die. They come to the end of their journey. I was recently thinking that everyone in my family has passed away. I'm the only one left. I guess that means I'm next. And that's okay. I'm not worried about that. But I do want you to realize that death still comes, one per person. So we could probably put a check mark by that box and say, yep, that's something that's going to happen to every one of us. That's something that is sure to happen. It's just a matter of time. Well, the second thing, taxes. You don't have to pay taxes when you're growing up. Your parents usually take care of paying the bills. They take care of the tax return that has to be filed every year for the family or for the business. It's just part of the game that taxes need to be paid. Taxes really, hopefully used correctly are a good thing. I mean, that's where paving the roads and paying for police officers and having good water systems and sewage systems in our communities, taxes used correctly are a wonderful thing. There's a verse in the Bible says when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. Paraphrase. When you have good people running your government, everybody's happy. They use the tax revenues that are appropriated properly to help the community have a more productive and successful life. I live in a small town and we still have, believe it or not, we still have service that you can take all of your tree limbs that have fallen or other natural debris. I'm not talking about trash, but I'm talking about limbs and bushes and whatever you prune, you can put them out by the street, and the city will come by and they've got a huge machine that just eats them up. I know you've seen one of these, but it's not an extra charge for that. Of course, trash pickup is extra, but the fact that the city says, we want you to keep your yards looking nice, and if you cut down limbs or if you have bushes or other shrubs and things that you have pruned back and cut back and you stack it all up and put it by, the street will come by and pick it up. And they use it for mulch, they use it for fertilizer. They use it for a lot of different things. We even have a walking track that was created from old tires that were recycled. The old rubber was chewed up. It was created with some, I'm sure, some other chemicals and some other methodologies, but then it was poured. And it's huge walking track that everyone enjoys. It's a little bit easy on your feet, and you can tell it's not hard concrete or cement, but it's kind of a rubbery asphalt feeling. A little bit substance that has been created. That was done by the city planners. They thought this would be a good idea. We'll have this in a park, and people will be able to enjoy it. So, as I've said earlier, there are two things that most of us will face sooner or later in this life, death and taxes. And for all of you who are younger, you ought to thank your parents for handling the tax bill, because that's still a complicated.

A complicated issue. A complicated matter. Years ago, I saw on 60 Minutes, the TV program, they had one set of financial information. It included house notes, it included charitable donation. It included all kinds of medical deductions. In other words, it was about, I would say, maybe 15 or 20 different items that were all created that someone was going to send in to their accountant in order for their tax return to be done. But 60 Minutes did something very unusual. They made 30 copies of the exact same documents. The house notes, the interest, the principal utilities, anything that was deductible, medical expenses, investments, and how much interest had accrued and what had to be paid. There's a variety of topics, but all of them were. Were copied. And they created 30 exact same tax information that was going to be sent to CPAs, people who are trained, who are accountants, who know how to file a tax return. The thing that I still remember to this day, 60 Minutes pointed out, they got 30 different answers. 30 different answers from you have to pay tax to good news this year, you don't have to pay any tax. You're going to get a tax refund. Well, I remember watching that when I was. I think I was still in high school when I watched. That was a long time ago. And I remember thinking to myself, what kind of system is that? That's. That's confusing. So in other words, if you ever have to hire a CPA or someone to do your taxes, find someone who is legal and ethical, but they're on your side. In other words, they want to make sure that you have to pay as little tax as possible and you get all the benefits from the tax code. Someone, my father told me, he said, if you avoid taxes, you will get rich. If you evade taxes, you will go to jail. So I'm talking about being wise and avoiding them. So death and taxes. But I mentioned earlier, there is a third thing. There is a third aspect of life that I promise you, comes to every one of us. And it comes often. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised no one has not talked about this sooner or thought about it and said something about it earlier. Well, what is that third thing? And the answer is change. The only thing in this life that is consistent, that you can count on happening is change. I'm not talking about loose quarters, nickels and dimes and pennies in your pocket. I'm not talking about that kind of change. I'm talking about things are constantly changing. Change in your life, in your physiology, in your family, in your relationships, in your business, in the weather, in your health. The only thing in this life that is going to happen, that you can count on is change. Psychiatrist Scott Pick once made the comment, the only thing in this life that is a hundred percent guaranteed is that you can learn to constantly relish in the fact that nothing is going to be the same day after day. Paraphrase. I want you to think I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me. Think about the fact one time we were all little babies, weren't we? We were in diapers. We were crawling around on the floor. Then after a while, we wanted somebody to change us. We wanted our diaper to be changed. But then after a while, we learned that we could actually go to the potty or the bathroom by ourselves. And then we got to where we could get a little bit older. We, of course, learned to walk and run and play. But then we began to change again and we. I remember when I was probably around 12 or 13 years old, hair started growing on my chest. It scared me to death. I thought I had cancer. I didn't know what it was to see this. These hair follicles coming out of my chest. Well, that's just part of life. If you haven't experienced it, you will one day, and it's perfectly normal. We all go through our body physiological changes, and we move from being a little child to. To a young child to then eventually becoming a teenager. And then we grow. We get older, we. We grow in our height, we grow in our weight. Sometimes we grow in our weight too much. I know that I have to constantly be aware. I used to want to be heavy. When I was in high school playing football, I. I did every. I'd eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the afternoon to try to gain weight. I could not gain weight to save my life. And now all I have to do to gain weight is go grocery shopping. I don't even have to buy anything. I just walk around the grocery store and gain £5 looking at stuff. Well, I think you get the idea. Here's what I want you to understand about change, and this will really help you and encourage you. Change is good because you learn from your mistakes. You learn as life goes up, as life goes on, as life goes along, Change will occur, and you can learn from your mistakes. I have a good friend, Charles Lowry, who's a psychologist, and Charles said this one time, I'll never forget. He said, remember, God is not an if only God. If only that hadn't happened, or if only this hadn't happened, or if only I hadn't made that mistake. If only I had known that. No, that's not the way it is. Charles went on to say, God is the next time God. Next time you'll do better. Next time you've learned a lesson and you'll not make that same mistake again. Next time you'll have the experience of life that you have under your belt that you'll be able to use to help guide, help direct and help lead you down new paths. So I have learned that once you accept the fact that things are going to change, not everything's going to stay the same. There will be deaths in the family. There'll be breakups among people in their marriages and even among their families. There'll be opportunities to learn more than you know now and get a better education. Zig Ziglar said, if you are who you are and what you are because of everything that's gone into your mind, if you want to have a Different life. If you want to have a better life, change what's going into your mind. I've heard so many different things that have been helpful. Here's another one. Whoever you hang around is who you're going to become. Like, you show me who your friends are, I'll show you exactly what you're like. Because birds of a feather flock together. If you look at your friends and you think, wow, they're a bunch of losers. I can't stand these people. I don't want to be like them. Then you need to ask yourself, why am I hanging around them? Another person said, if you're the smartest person in your group, you need to find a new group. I'm constantly looking for people who know more than me, who do life better than me, financially, relationally, so I can learn from them. So recognize that change is constant. Change is for sure. Change is always happening. And again, if you look at it in a positive light, think about the fact that when you were in elementary school or middle school or high school, you learned a certain amount of information, academic information. But then maybe you decided you wanted to go to college and learn or trade school and learn how to become a plumber, or learn how to become a pilot, or learn how to become a lawyer, or learn how to become any other thing. Well, that's because you took the time to change. You took the time to learn. I tell kids in school, and if you're still in school, remember the three things that will change constantly that you need to be aware of. Number one is that you'll be changed by learning new vocabulary words. You'll learn vocabulary words, you didn't know what that meant before. You'll learn what words mean in a particular profession to help you do that profession better. Second thing is, you'll learn different systems. That's the main thing about going to school. You'll learn there's lots of different systems. Some teachers have test, others have papers that have to be written, others have participation in class. But all of that will teach you how change works. Because those are the very things that happen in business and in marketing and sales that you that you are learning about how sales and marketing techniques work. And you learn that by, first of all learning new vocabulary words, and second of all by recognizing the fact that their systems. Amazon is a system, Ebay is a system, your different websites have systems. Learning different systems is a powerful concept, and we're all continuing to learn these new systems and how they work. And the third thing is learn personality information because people change I believe people's personality stays pretty much the same, but the ones you interact with constantly, you'll be operating sometimes in dealing with Ds, their bottom lines, they want results. Sometimes you'll be working and interacting with eyes. They want recognition. Other times you'll be working with the supportive S types. They love relationships. And then you may meet see cautious types. They love to be right. Learning that and who you're dealing with changes every day because depending on who you're talking to is how you should change, not get them to change, but how you should change to better connect with them. So I hope this, this podcast has been helpful. I just want you to grab the concept that there are three things that will constantly be changing and everybody will face them. The first one's death, the second one's taxes, and the third one is change itself. Don't begrudge the fact that you have to sometimes change jobs. You have to change where you live locations, you have to change your tires on your car, you have to change the oil. If you recognize that change is part of life, you won't resist it so much. You'll do better at receiving it and you'll have a better life. I hope this has been helpful. I'm Dr. Robert Rome, trying to share with you on this podcast how to become wiser. That's what this podcast is all about, becoming wiser. And I hope today's podcast has helped you to become a little wiser when it comes to the topic of change. At least I hope it does. I look forward to talking to you again on another podcast real soon. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.

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