Say Yes To Your Life

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." ~ Nelson Mandela

There is a TV Show called Say Yes To The Dress that I watch with my daughter.  Brides go into the store with their family and friends to pick out that perfect dress.  They show what she is looking for in a dress and a little information on what the party she has brought along with her is going to contribute such as financially or input on the dress.  There are numerous occassions where the bride comes out in a dress that she thinks is the perfect dress and someone in the party has nothing good to say about the dress.  After some give and take the bride trys on other dresses.  Eventually if it is a successful experience the bride finds one that makes the party happy, yet also brings tears realizing that the dress she thought was perfect was nice but she would have been settling had she not looked a little longer.  As the mom of a young lady I have tried to teach her that all relationships take work.  However, one should consider if in the beginning you are working to much then one of you is trying to change the other one.  Like that dress that highlights all your features there are relationships that do the same.  That is the yin and the yang to each other.  When you are young life is about having fun, discovering who you are and what you want to do with your life.  Don't settle for something that requires you to change who you are or that you are trying to change who they are.  The reality is a bird and fish can fall in love but where would they live.  Life offers so much potential, don't settle.

Release Your Doubt

“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt” ~ unknown


The most wonderful part of life is the beauty in the potential. When we stop growing and learning we cease to see the potential a new day can hold. We surrender to our doubts and assume that life is what it is today and that is all it is. Life is so much more than even we can imagine. There is so much potential to live a life that is on purpose where we do what we love instead of what pays the bills. The movie the Shift by Wayne Dyer focuses on that point in our life that we realize life is more than obtaining things. It is more about who we are with and what we do with our time, how we give back. Life has so much beauty and potential. If you ever have doubts take an hour. Watch the sunrise in the early morning as a new day approaches. Witness the sunset as a day comes to a close. Walk out into the night sky and lye on your back and watch the stars and the moon. Sit in a park and listen to the tress in the wind. Stand in the rain or open your window during a thunderstorm. Life is amazing and the key to living an amazing life is to never have doubt in how amazing our life and our experience here can be.

The Secret I Just Learned

I have spent the last 15+ years digesting books by amazing people, books on how to view life, ourselves and the universe. I love a good fiction book don’t get me wrong. My passion however has been those that allow for self discovery. Whether it was based on my position as a Business Development Director and books by Jack Canfield, Stephen Covey or the author of How to be a Rainmaker or the ones that go deeper into our soul like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer or as of recent Deanna Davis and Kevin Hall. I have consumed them like a wonderful dessert after a fantastic meal. Each of them offering insights from their perspectives tied together in a beautiful package with examples and lessons from those they have studied or met.

On a plane ride recently while feasting on one of these works of art I had an epiphany. My love, my passion is words. Allow me to clarify, I do not have a desire to know every word or necessarily understand every word. What I love is the power of words in everything, a book, a lecture, a song, a play, a movie, a story or a conversation. Words to me are the voice of our thoughts. They bring to life our emotions, ides, feelings, hopes and dreams. The illuminate potential out of darkness and begin to create the foundation of what can be, from what was never there.

Each of us has a voice and with that voice has the potential to create and design something magnificent. Each of us has a power to shape our lives and impact those we encounter into something that upon reflection we are proud of. Never underestimate your own potential or the power of your words. Seek knowledge from that which inspires you. Find your own secret passion and then share it with the world. Take time to realize the one thing that can not be purchased ever, is a moment that has passed. So live each moment with that knowledge.

If I Believe I Can Then I Can

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain." ~ Emily Dickinson

Technology feeds us data 24/7 and most of it is negative.  It doesn't matter how much technology has changed or we have progressed in every aspect at the core we are still striving for the same thing.  To feel as if we made a difference.  To know that somehow we matter to someone and that someone matters to us.  To see that the time we have spent here has been about more than getting ahead.  Each day we are graced with sunrise is another opportunity for us to make a difference in the lives around us as well as our own. 

There are so many little things we have the ability to do that can have an impact on those we encounter.  Leave each person feeling better for having met us, listen to understand and with your full attention.  Take time to enjoy your life and be there for yourself and those that matter.  Recognize your own gifts and fulfill them.  By fulfilling our dreams we enable and inspire other to do the same. 

Change and Grow Stronger

C.S. Lewis said, “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. “
Change can be difficult to accept, but as with the analogy of a bird, we can never really fly unless we learn to leave the comfort of the egg. We need to hatch and sometimes that isn’t easy but it makes us stronger.
Once, when observing baby chicks being hatched I a kindergarten classroom I saw the children wanting to help the chicks along by pulling away a piece of the egg shell. They could see the little beak trying so hard to break through and struggling to escape. The wise teacher told the children that if they helped the chick break trough the shell then it would never be strong enough to survive once it was freed. It was that very struggle that made the chick strong and independent.
We all have our shells to break out of at times. We need to leave our comfort zone in order to grow. The struggle to accomplish the change is as necessary sometimes as the change itself. It makes us stronger and more independent. If, like the bird we are content staying in our shell, we will surely “go bad” from lack of development.