Ron Travis
Ron's book, "The Synergistic Life Style - How To Set Goals And Live A Balanced and Abundant Life", contains fourteen chapters covering the different areas of our lives that we should set goals and strive to achieve in: Commitment - Goals - Budget - Feedback - Problems - Spiritual - Mental - Emotional - Physical - Marriage - Children - Support Group - Financial - Work.
Ron and June have taught senior high school students and beginning couples in church classes and seminars during the past 40 years. They have now followed these young people long enough to know that the teaching points contained in this book work.
Ron and June have learned many of the principles shared in the book while experiences problems in their lives, which they share with the reader. They know that if you fail in one area of life, it will have a negative effect in other areas.
There are so many threats to individuals and families that are trying to live an abundant life. The negative influences are greater today because of the fast pace of life, and the delivery systems for these influences on our children. The threats include: divorce - negative influence from the media - materialism - absentee fathers - alcohol and drug use by one of the parents - the availability of alcohol and drugs around schools - pornography on the internet - morality not being taught at home - medical depressiuon - and a need for both parents to work just to keep up.
Each chapter includes Ron's beliefs about the things needed to live an abundant life. When you add up all of the lessons learned in each chapter, the synergistic result will be a balanced life greater than the sum of each area..
Ronald O. Travis Sr. (Ron) and June celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary on June 10, 2008. Ron and June have worked together as partners to develop a synergistic lifestyle, where the resultant abundant life is greater than the sum of the different areas.
In addition to being successful in public accounting, corporate management, and business consulting, Ron has partnered with June and others to build apartments and other real estate ventures.
Ron and June have three grown sons, their lovely wives, and twelve grandchildren.
June taught in elementary school during six of the first nine years of their marriage.
Ron is a Certified Public Accountant. His career includes: three years in public accounting - two years as an officer in the United States Army Finance Corps - ten years as the CFO and Senior Vice President for two subsidiaries of Kane-Miller Corp. - nineteen years as CFO and Senior Vice President of McWane, Inc. - and President of Travis Management Systems, LLP.
Ron's career has been centered on designing and implementing totally integrated management control systems to assist entities in preparing long-range plans, and achieving goals. He emphasizes honesty, integrity and excellence in every aspect of management.
Ron and June have taught classes and seminars to high school seniors and beginning couples over the past 40 years to transfer these goal setting principles to them.
In Chapter Eleven, "Children", the following text illustrates how Ron has used problems in his life to learn, or reinforce, the great principles of life that are included in this book:
"Everyone responds to positive reinforcement of desired results far more than they will to negative consequences for failure to perform". Positive reinforcement for desired actions, as you move toward desired goals, is at least five times more effective than dwelling on the negative, or what goes wrong.
Children will just respond better to criticism and correction if they know, that with out a doubt, they are loved and encouraged, and the ratio of praise to criticism is moving toward the 5 to 1 positive balance.
We must somehow help our children learn to succeed, so they will develop a positive attitude about themselves, and not feel like a failure and unworthy. I disagree with the writers that say to let the child suffer the natural consequences of their own decisions. Success breeds success. Failure Breeds a sense of unworthiness, and a feeling of "why try"?
When our oldest son was in the third grade in 1973, the popular trend was to allow children to advance at their own speed. Our son chose to daydream for one six-week period. I met with his teachers and school counselor after his grades came home. One of the teachers recommended leaving him alone and letting him fail, in order to motivate him. I told them all that no child of mine would fail just because no one helped him learn to study. The counselor suggested he be put on a program called, "The Gorical Program". At the end of each day, Ron Jr. was given a plastic Gorical by each of his teachers if he did all of his work for that day. We strung them together in his room until he earned 3-days worth in a row. We then let him stay up and hour later than his two younger brothers, until he went one day without getting a Gorical from each of his teachers. He then would start over for three more days before getting the positive reward we had negotiated with him.
Ron Jr. learned to manage his time and went on to advanced classes by Junior High. He was an honors student from then on, through his college masters program.
We learned once again the valuable lesson that we could get better results from people by including them in decision making, setting goals, developing feedback, and using positive reinforcement.
