I have had a lot of different experiences in my life and have taken chances that on the outside might not have seemed so smart. Okay they probably weren’t so smart on the inside either, but who knew? I jumped in anyway because I have this theory about life—you’ve got to go and do what you want to do in case the world changes and those one-time opportunities disappear. I fundamentally believe that we are not meant to live a boring life. This world is too big, too amazing, too discoverable for me (or you) to sit at home and […]
Carpe Diem, My Friend
Carpe Diem. Seize the day… Make your lives extraordinary. Dead Poets Society It’s the fourth week on my topic and I am just as excited and motivated by my themes of Commitment, Excellence and Action as when I first introduced you to it in the beginning of February. When I started to write about these three themes that I know you hear about often, they just kept unveiling themselves as a much deeper theme than a one-and-done. Commitment, Excellence and Action seem so simple, yet so hard to master, if you don’t lay the groundwork to get it right the […]
Discover who you are
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. Bernice Johnson Reagon If you ask your friends and family what are some challenges that they are facing today and how they plan to overcome them, most of your peers will look at you with a blank expression and suddenly you will see a quote cloud form above their head that says, “You need to find someone else to talk to. I don’t want to go that deep today…or tomorrow or ever.” Now it’s not because they didn’t understand the question, it is […]
You Have Permission to Rest
Most every health official or wellness magazine suggests that we all need to slow down and rest, and yet most of us refuse until our bodies force us to stop and take care of ourselves. The million-dollar question is why don’t we take such good advice? And the ten-cent answer is that, for many, it seems selfish to stop and take care of ourselves when so much needs to be done in the world, our community and our own homes. Like most of my friends, I was under the weather this week. Not really sick and not really well. I […]
Difficult Roads Often Lead to Beautiful Destinations
My theme today is “Difficult Roads Often Lead to Beautiful Destinations.” Now, I know that today’s thought is probably the last thing on your mind when you’re slogging through hard times. I get it. We’ve all been there, but if you were truthful with yourself, you’d have to admit that, more often than not, when you do come through the storm and land on the other side, it’s usually never as bad as you thought or expected it to be. And if it was a miserable experience, you can count yourself lucky to have survived. The truth is that many […]
The beginning of wisdom is knowing which question to ask
What is the question that you would like an answer to? Is it a question about your life, your family or your future? And is there someone who can answer those questions for you? I believe that deep inside, most of us pretty well know the answers to all of the questions that bubble up in our minds, and yet we choose not to speak those questions. We fear the answer we don’t like or want. We don’t want to admit that the answer maybe something we don’t want to happen in our lives. Ah, questions! We are all looking […]
Be sure you put your feet in the right place
You know, it is a fact of life that sometimes you fall–you just hope that you don’t fall in water on a leadership training excursion. A few years ago I was with some friends, and we were doing the typical leadership adventures of bonding with the other team members. Now, something you need to know about me is, although I enjoy the outdoors, I have never liked the said “team-building programs.” It’s never been my ambition to fall backwards in trust and hope (and prayer) that my teammates will catch me. I don’t have faith or fun on a zip […]
The one thing that you have
“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live only as you can.”–Neil Gaiman I meet a lot of people in my work and travels and, as I have grown in my own life through so many life experiences, I have over time developed a 6th sense (as it were) to see past the façade of who many people want you to think they are, to the underneath of that person and their inside. Not the outside […]
It is not the critic who counts.
“It is not the critic who counts…” You know this phrase as well as you know your name but have you really thought about the truth contained in those seven words that have gone down in history? The fact is that the world is full of critics whose words don’t count because they don’t know you, your story or your future. And the sad part is that they really don’t care to know you; they find great delight in tearing you down because they need a stepping stone in their quest for significance. Never be misled by the critics who […]