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.

Of Infinite Worth

"At this very moment, you may be saying to yourself that you have any number of admirable qualities.  You are a loyal friend, a caring person, someone who is smart, dependable, fun to be around.  That's wonderful, and I'm happy for you, but let me ask you this:  are you being any of those things to yourself?"  ~Phillip C. McGraw

What kind of value do you put on a human life? The Forbes 400 top richest people report recently came out and there are people who are said to be “worth” billions of dollars. As I look over the list I see what kind of impact these people have made on the world, some of it because of the financial abundance they have acquired. Then there are others, unknown to the entire world, with very little material means, that are of infinite worth. They too may make a contribution in another’s life that could not have a dollar value placed on it. Everyone born into this world is of priceless worth. Sometimes it just takes the validation of others or the acquisition of assets to feel that way. What if each person we encountered left our presence feeling as if they were of great value to us. What if we looked at them and our thoughts immediately went to seeing the positive in them and recognizing what they contribute to this world. What if each person could look in the mirror and realize their own worth without being told or shown by others. If we all could have that kind of understanding about the worth of a human soul without having to prove it or have it validated by others, then it just may be a much more peaceful world. Let’s start one person at a time -- you.

Find The Beauty

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~ Joanne Kathleen Rowling

Today we seem to find more of what is wrong with the world then what is right. We turn on the news, sign on to a computer, open a browser on our phone, listen to the radio; it doesn’t matter what it is there is something that has happened coming at us 24/7. There was a time when after midnight all you had was white noise. When you could leave your home and not be subjected to what was wrong in the world unless you picked up a paper. While technology is an amazing tool that allows us to offer our products to everyone in the world from the comfort of our own homes, it is also the very thing that is impacting so many lives, and not always for the better. Each time we listen, read or see the news we decide how we are going to process that information. Are we going to let it consume us or are we going to decide to know what is going on in the world without feeling we have the burden of the world on us. News, information, knowledge are all positive things to be aware of, however like anything in life, too much is not a good thing. Especially if we allow it to bring us down. This evening on my drive home I was amazed at the beauty of the Harvest Moon. As I looked up at it I realized, the men and women protecting our country, the local authorities, the doctors and nurses that care for so many all have the same bright moon. Life is a flash of lightening in the sky that is here and gone before you know it. Surrounding us outside of all the negative information is a world of beauty and wonder. Take time to witness the beauty in the world. Make a choice to see your own beauty. Live this life you have been given be thankful for those that protect us, respect those that work insane hours to keep us alive and healthy and most of all respect and appreciate the beauty of your own life and the value it plays in so many lives you may not even know.

Busy in a Good Way

"Once you have a clear picture of your priorities- that is values, goals, and high leverage activities- organize around them."-- Stephen Covey
We’ve all heard the expression before that if you want to have someone do something for you and get it done right and on time, ask a busy person. Why is that? It may have to do with the fact that busy people must be well organized in order to get anything accomplished. Or it may be that really well organized people are able to take on more and are therefore busier. (A chicken/egg scenario if ever there was one…) Organization helps avoid costly mistakes, allows us to accomplish our work better so we can enjoy our free time more, and in general, I believe makes us a happier, more peaceful person. Removing the unnecessary stress of disorganization has a ripple effect for good. When we are all disheveled we tend to take out our panic and stress on those around us. When we are organized those around us can also be taken up in a feeling of calm.

Fill Your Time Up

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” ~ Jim Rohn

Have you ever been to a sporting event or concert that wasn’t sold out? You look around and think they are paying the same amount for the lights, entertainment, why not drop the price and fill the place up. Maybe you thought you knew friends that would have attended had the tickets been better priced or a discount. Sometimes events sell out within minutes and yet other times they don’t. As an event owner you realize that this space that is left empty is lost revenue and there is more than the money lost from the ticket, the ancillary items like t-shirts, food and beverages. However if you can capitalize on the situation and offer a promotion to fill the seat then you stand the potential to make money in other areas. Life is the same way. We get this day, these moments and we can leave them empty with what didn’t happen or what didn’t go our way, or we can fill them up with the potential of what they can be. Like an event center the time the performers are on or the athletes are playing there is the opportunity to earn something. Our minutes in our lives are the potential to develop our lives to make memories and to live. If we fail to see the value in the minutes, to make the most of them even if some aren’t worth as much as others we are only missing out on other potential opportunities to earn more out of our lives. We all get the same 60 minutes, 24 hours and 365 days the difference is how we fill the seats.

Does It Really Matter Who Is Right?

"Did you ever notice how difficult it is to argue with someone who is not obsessed with being right?" -- Wayne Dyer

Many years ago I had a struggle with a roommate over the silliest thing. We lived in an apartment with a mailroom and one key per apartment. My roommate had put the key on her ring and would check the mail when she got home from work each day. That bothered me and I would get so upset over the fact that I couldn’t get my mail when I wanted to, which was when I got home from work about an hour before my roommate. The logical solution I thought would be leaving the key in the apartment so that who ever got home first could get their mail. It did mean an extra trip back up the stairs and out to the mailroom. She was not open to this suggestion and slapped the key down on the table. This “problem” bothered me so much that I would even call home about it. Seems so silly now of course. On one occasion when I was complaining to my mother about it she asked if being right (not that there was a right or wrong answer necessarily here) was more important that our friendship. She said if it was, then by all means fight for it. It quickly put things into perspective and I realized if it was that important for my roommate to carry the mail key, then I could wait an hour for my mail. In any argument we need to ask ourselves if it is more important to be right than to keep the peace and keep a relationship. In most cases I am sure we will find that there isn’t really one person who is absolutely right. From your perspective and from their perspective there are often two right answers.

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.

From Thought to Reality

“He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress” – Anwar Sadat

This is a message from a man who may have been believed to understand the Law of Attraction well before his time. He was the president of Egypt from 1970-1981 and I don’t recall much conversation during my early teen years, when he would have said this, about the fact that what you think is what you will get. In reality the concept is as old as time…”For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” It just didn’t have the label for the process that is becoming so well-known today. For those who may not be believers, just look at all the other names this and similar concepts may have gone by: “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” “Self-Actualization” and so forth. I would challenge anyone who doesn’t believe yet that your thoughts lead to actions and actions lead to achievement to give it a try. It goes far beyond the idea that if you just think it, it will come. Thinking is the predecessor of action. Action makes thoughts a reality.

Realize That Life Is Meant To Be Lived

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” ~ Mark Twain

Tonight my daughter had her senior corn roast and bonfire and then some friends came over after, let’s say more than 20 less than 35. As I am upstairs typing this blog my downstairs is full of teenagers laughing and having fun. It makes me smile and realize how time changes things. Just over 2 months ago she was broken hearted thinking the boy she had dated for over a year could hurt her so badly. She was confident she would never be okay. As I glace beside my bed at a photo of my daughter at 2 and my grandmother that raised me I remember how much it hurt to lose her. To not have her to talk to every day to lean on, I didn’t know how I would make it. Now I talk with her often, and know she is always with me in spirit. Time allows us to realize the loss we felt is due to the love we felt. The love was a gift and the end is just part of what happens in life. It is how we let those ends affect us that determine if we have a life of fun and happiness or a life a pain and heartache. See the gift life is, that each day is an opportunity to experience life to live. Live it.

Where Do You Want to Go?

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go,” was his response.
‘I don't know,’ Alice answered.

‘Then, ‘said the cat, ‘ it doesn't matter.’” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Before we can start on any journey we need to know where we want to end up. In fact, knowing where you want to end up is really all that matters, because often there are many roads that lead there. One may be easier, better marked by those who went before you than another. Another road may not get there as quickly. It may be full of potholes and the going may be slow, but eventually you will get where you want to go, as long as you keep your destination in mind. There may be others who have arrived at where you want to be. They may know what roads were best for them, but it may not be the right road for you. We never know who we may meet along the road we have chosen that needs us at that moment in time to guide them on the journey with us. For that reason we are often prompted to go down a road that has us wondering why we had to go this way. Every road that leads us where we want to end up is worth whatever it takes to travel it.

Living A Creative Life

“Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.” ~ Stephen R. Covey

I would say I have been blessed my entire life. Not by the amount of obstacles or set back I have not had to face, rather by the way that every time I am in the midst of what seems like a dead-end or a setback something better comes along. While initially many would disagree that isn’t the case, however if you analyzed the entire situation from finances to independence and value of our time and who and how it is spent then it would be 100% correct. I went through a divorce and became a better parent. I went through a bankruptcy and came out more financially aware and responsible and purchased my first home as a single mom. I lost my grandmother that raised me and have learned to open my heart and expand my family. I have moved 3300+ miles to find a new career and new friends. I had my job eliminated and started a business, the one we own today. We have faced setbacks, over promised commitments by vendors and yet when we open our minds and our hearts we continue to find individuals that believe in the value of our products and what we are trying to do. From all of this I have had an amazing adventure and meet some amazing people. I have had time with my daughter that I never had over the last 3 years that is now in her senior year of high school. I have written an eBook and met with a film senior vice president. I have lived a life that is focused on continual growth and expansion and own a company that supports that mission. I believe Mr. Covey was so right when we open ourselves up anything is possible.

Change

Frederick F. Flack said, “Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.” Think for a moment about a significant change in your own life. Did you resist or did you embrace it with excitement and hope? Change will come and whether we accept it or not. Sometimes we need to be pushed into a different situation in order to grow. With change comes growth and with growth we are one step closer to discovering the potential within us.

To Get We Must Give

“To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give” ~ Taisen Deshimaru


Everything starts with gratitude. When we are grateful for what we have now, we are able to open ourselves to more. There is something in everyone’s life if only your breath that you have to be grateful for. Start there and then look outside yourself. See the sun that rises and sets for you. See the moon and the stars that shine at night for you, the rain that falls to offer water for you. When we recognize the smallest of things we have in our lives to be grateful for we will notice more opportunities as well. When we take inspired action towards those opportunities then we are offered even more to be grateful for. When we offer assistance to those that we can help instead of just what we are trying to accomplish we open more opportunities. Life can be as big as we want it to be, but it has to start with gratitude and the willingness to give thanks to where we are and where we can be.

Celebrate Our Differences

Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” There are many different people in the world all with their own set of values and beliefs. It is this kind of freedom to think and have an opinion on a subject and free will that is part of our divine inheritance. When we can listen to the thoughts and ideas of others with an open mind and practice tolerance for the way people choose to live, think and worship, we can learn to celebrate the diversity in the world instead of condemn others who believe differently than we do. Someone once said that diversity is the one true thing we all have in common and that we should celebrate it each day.

Our Dreams Are Woven Together

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.” Anais Nin

Every person has dreams, goals things they want to achieve. Then there are those that seem to have every wish come true. You may wonder how it is that life seems so easy for so many and so hard for others. When life doesn’t go according to plan we naturally look for blame, for somewhere to place the disappointment. Speaking from experience the sooner we can accept we are where we are based on our own choices and that there are other opportunities awaiting we just need to be open to them, the sooner we can shift our life. Dreams are only dreams unless we take action. A friend Nathaniel Hansen told me over dinner do what you can do now. There is something you can do to move you towards that dream, I submit to you to find what that is and do that. This is the key element we must approach it like making a quilt. I may not have all the pieces the ones I have now I can begin to weave those into something and as I need more pieces and stay open to opportunity and take inspired action and the next best step I will eventually have a beautiful quilt.

Determination

“You've done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.” - Ralph Marston

It takes just s much energy to be negative – maybe more – as it does to be positive and it may improve your health. The Mayo Clinic recently conducted a study on the impact of having positive thoughts go through your head. Their conclusions included an increased life span, lower rates of depression, greater resistance to the common cold, reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease and better coping skills during hardship. In general, they found that people with a positive attitude took better care of themselves physically and avoided things that are harmful to the body. Their recommendation is also to take notice of the “self talk” – that ongoing stream of thoughts that run through your head. Make a conscious choice to replace negative thoughts in this stream with positive, optimistic thoughts. Positive thinking will create more positive thoughts, less stress and an overall happier, healthier life.

Follow Your Heart, Follow Your Dream

"When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place." ~ Anonymous

Throughout history we have been taught that in order to achieve great potential we must be willing to never give in.  Walt Disney went bankrupt, several times.  Thomas Edison experimented with over 6,000 materials to use as filament in a light bulb before he found the one that worked.  The Wright Brothers didn't fly on their first try.  Ford Motor Company planned to sale 100,000 cars in a year and sold only 100,847 in three years.  Hollywood told Fred Astaire "Can't act, can't sing, slightly bald but can dance a little. 

Every person I have listed went on to follow their heart and succeed beyond what anyone had ever thought possible, outside of themselves.  We have a power without our passion.  A drive and a will that overcome obstacles, look for ways to make things happen and move ourselves and things in a tireless effort if we are following our heart.  If someone says it's a great idea but, it may be just that.  Consider this, IPad, Iphone, Texting, 4G networks were all just an idea once. Today they are a household name.  Technology has advanced because of those individuals that have proven an idea can become a tangible thing.

What is your dream, what is your passion?  Are you taking steps, reaching out through a variety of channels to make your dream a reality?  If so then quiet the voices that say to give up and give it your all instead.  You will reach something, maybe not the goal you had seen, maybe a better one. 

Opposition

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran

There is opposition in all things. In order to know joy, we must know sorrow. If we didn’t we would not realize the fullness of joy. To know health, we need to know its opposite of illness or pain. The whole spectrum of human emotion is based on this simply principle that to recognize how wonderful life is, we must have at least a little taste of the contrary.

We Create Our Live One Day At A Time

“You will achieve grand dream, a day at a time, so set goals for each day / not long and difficult projects, but chores that will take you, step by step, toward your rainbow. Write them down, if you must, but limit your list so that you won't have to drag today's undone matters into tomorrow. Remember that you cannot build your pyramid in twenty-four hours. Be patient. Never allow your day to become so cluttered that you neglect your most important goal / to do the best you can, enjoy this day, and rest satisfied with what you have accomplished.” ~ Og Mandino


In honor of Labor Day consider the above quote. If this week we try to take our work one day, taking action on the next best step and not allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed with what we can’t get done. Realizing that in doing today what I can do to the best I am able to do it is better than to spend today worried about what I am doing the day after tomorrow. Life has no guarantees there will be anything beyond this moment I have right now. Live in this moment, act in this moment so that we may create our future moments.

Practice Makes Perfect

Very few people are born with their talents fully developed. I would even venture to say that no one is. There are many born with gifts that are left inside of them because for one reason or another they don’t feel compelled to share them. Maybe they are afraid they will not be good enough. Maybe their excuse is that there isn’t enough time for something that isn’t directly related to making a living or caring for our families. There are probably as many excuses as there are talents lying in hiding with which the world may never be blessed. I, for one, am grateful to all the masters of art, literature and music for how they enrich my life, but I am even more grateful for the still unknown talents that make my world a little better. They may not have been discovered for their gift, but their gifts mean the world to those in their world. Benjamin Franklin said, “Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?” You may not be the best, but you will never know what you have until you develop it to the best of your ability. Dave Weinbaum puts it as, “If you can’t excel with talent, triumph with effort.”