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24
March 2009 |
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| If
we would build on a sure foundation in friendship we
must love friends for their sake rather than our
own.
Charlotte
Bronte |
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It
is the simple things of life that make living
worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things
such as love and duty, work and rest,
and living close to nature.
Laura
Ingalls Wilder |
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If
all were rain and never sun,
No bow could span the hill;
If all were sun and never rain,
There's be no rainbow still.
Christina
Rossetti |
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Dining
in Iraq
(an excerpt)
Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Army
food is just about what you'd expect: bland,
overcooked, and prepared in massive quantities. The
dishes are not garnished with sprigs of parsley. The
mess halls are essentially calorie factories, giving the
troops the fuel they need to do their jobs. An old
Army proverb says, "An Army travels on its
stomach."
The
Pegasus chow hall, just outside the Baghdad airport, has
developed a different reputation. At Pegasus, the
prime rib is perfectly prepared. The fruit platter
is a beautiful assortment of watermelon, kiwi fruit, and
grapes. There are legends of soldiers driving to
Pegasus from the Green Zone (the well protected
Americanized area of Baghdad), along one of the most
treacherous roads in Iraq, just to eat a meal.
Floyd
Lee, the man in charge of Pegasus, was retired from his
twenty-five-year career as a Marine Corps and Army cook
when the Iraq war began. He came out of retirement
to take the job. "The good Lord gave me a
second chance to feed soldiers," he said.
"I've waited for this job all my life, and here I am
in Baghdad.
Lee
is well aware that being a soldier is relentlessly
difficult. The soldiers often work eighteen-hour
days, seven days a week. The threat of danger in
Iraq is constant. Lee wants Pegasus to provide a
respite from the turmoil. He's clear about his
leadership mission: "As I see it, I am not just
in charge of food service; I am in charge of morale."
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Think
about that: I am in charge of morale.
In terms of Maslow's hierarchy, Lee is going for
Transcendence.
This
vision manifests itself in hundreds of small actions
taken by Lee's staff on a daily basis. At
Pegasus, the white walls of the typical mess hall
are covered with sports banners. There are
gold treatments on the windows, and green
tablecloths with tassels. The harsh fluorescent
lights have been replaced by ceiling fans with soft
bulbs. The servers wear tall chef's hats.
The
remarkable thing about Pegasus's reputation for
great food is that Pegasus works with exactly the
same raw materials that everyone else does.
Pegasus serves the same twenty-one-day Army menu as
other dining halls. Its food comes from the
same suppliers. It's the attitude that makes
the difference. A chef sorts through the daily
fruit shipment, culling the bad grapes, selecting
the best parts of the watermelon and kiwi, to
prepare the perfect food tray. At night, the
dessert table features five kinds of pie and three
kinds of cake. The Sunday prime rib is
marinated for two full days. A cook from New
Orleans orders spices that are mailed to Iraq to
enhance the entrees. A dessert chef describes
her strawberry cake as "sexual and
sensual"--two adjectives never before applied
to Army food.
Lee
realizes that serving food is a job, but improving
morale is a mission. Improving morale involves
creativity and and experimentation and
mastery. Serving food involves a ladle.
One
of the soldiers who commute to Pegasus for Sunday
dinner said, "The time you are in here, you
forget you're in Iraq." Lee is tapping
into Maslow's forgotten categories--the Aesthetic,
Learning, and Transcendence needs. In
redefining the mission of his mess hall, he has
inspired his co-workers to create an oasis in the
desert.
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While
at first glance this volume might resemble the
latest in a series of trendy business advice
books, ultimately it is about storytelling,
and it is a how-to for crafting a compelling
narrative. Employing a lighthearted tone, the
Heaths apply those selfsame techniques to
create an enjoyable read. They analyze such
narratives as urban legends and advertisements
to discover what makes them memorable. The
authors provide a simple mnemonic to remember
their stickiness formula, and the basic
principles may be applied in any situation
where persuasiveness is an asset. The book is
a fast read peppered with exercises to test
the techniques proposed. |
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| Just
as a word of encouragement during failure is worth
more than a whole book of praises after success, small
deeds done are always better than great deeds planned.
Patti
LaBelle
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To
confront evil successfully, we as a nation must also
confront
our own darkness; we must not act as a messiah, filled with
undue majesty and certainty, but rather as a healer,
filled with compassion, empathy, and humility.
David
Spangler |
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Please
Accept My Apology
Larry Harp
You probably remember me from the other day. I
was the one who reacted very slowly to the green
traffic light. When you honked your horn, I
realized I was holding up traffic, so please accept
my apology. However, I do want you to know why
I seemed in a daze.
You see, I was just at the doctor's office getting
the results of the biopsy I had two weeks ago, and I
was wondering how I would tell my husband and
children that I have cancer. My eyes were
still stinging from crying, so, quite simply I
didn't even see the light change. Perhaps I
should not have been driving, but I didn't want to
miss my appointment and there was no one else to
take me.
And you over there, yes you. I was the one in
the express lane at the supermarket. I know you are
only supposed to take 12 items or less and I had a
basket full. Please accept my apology.
My mind was on my youngest daughter who ran away
from home, and she's just sixteen. I was so
distraught then. You see, she somehow got in
with the wrong crowd and started using drugs and
drinking. I was remembering what a pretty
little girl she had been most of her life. I
know you were perturbed along with others in
line. Please, accept my apology.
I remember you from the department store last
week. I was so mean to you when you were doing
your job to the best of your ability. I acted
so childishly. Please accept my apology.
You see, I arrived home from work just yesterday and
discovered that my wife had left me. But I
should never have taken it out on you. Please,
accept my apology.
The above are fictitious incidents, and yet they
express a very real truth. The old saying about
judging others before you have "walked a mile
in their shoes," is a much-needed
reminder. Perhaps we all could try to be more
cognizant of the fact that there are problems and
situations in the lives of others of which we are
totally unaware.
So, maybe before we get frustrated in similar
circumstances, and find we are momentarily
inconvenienced or suffering through a pointless
tirade, we should think a moment and understand that
things may be going on in other's lives which have
caused them to be slower, absentminded or
angry. Patience, as they say, is a virtue. |
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week. |
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Einstein's
Ability to Risk and Willingness to be Wrong
Ron
White
The early life of Einstein gives us some clues to
the great man that he would become. He was never one
to dominate conversation to prove his intellect.
Even as a child he didn't talk much. It has been
said that he didn't talk until 3 -- there are
conflicting accounts on this. However, what is not
conflicting is that it took him a little longer to
talk than the average child. But, we must remember
that Albert Einstein was far from average.
Einstein's parents hardly coddled their first born.
They gave him tremendous freedom to roam and grow.
This no doubt had a positive outcome on his
development. When he was just four years old, he was
allowed to roam the neighborhood alone. Believe it
or not his parents even encouraged him to cross the
street on his own at this young age. They watched
behind the first few times to ensure that he looked
both ways, but soon he was on his own doing this.
Now, keep in mind when he was crossing the street he
wasn't dodging Fords, Chevrolets, Mercedes or cars
with a lot of horse power -- he was dodging only
horsepower. In other words, he was dodging horse
drawn carriages. But, it was still very dangerous
for this young child. In our world today, I would
not encourage my four-year-old to roam the
neighborhood alone or even allow him near the
street. With that being said, the principles of
self-reliance and risk that Einstein's parents
implemented in his life are ones that we can perhaps
model on a smaller scale. Einstein certainly modeled
this behavior with his own son on a smaller scale.
In his late twenties, Einstein moved to Zurich with
his first wife, Mileva, and their son. Friedrich
Adler was living near Einstein and they became great
friends. They would often get together to share
ideas. Often times their sons would get rowdy and it
would be hard for them to talk. Many parents would
barge in and tell their sons to be quiet, that they
are having a meeting. Not Adler and Einstein, these
great thinkers would climb into the attic to carry
on their conversation. They allowed their boys to
grow and explore even if it was noisy.
His freedom as a child and the freedom he gave his
son was, in part, due to his attitude on failure. He
was not afraid to fail. After all, he tackled some
of the most perplexing questions of our universe.
Many would have shied away from tackling these
questions simply because the rate of failure seemed
extraordinarily high. However, it is evident that
Einstein was not afraid to be wrong or to fail.
When Einstein was fifty years old, reporters were
hounding Einstein for an interview during which he
was working on a unified field theory. Putting the
"unified field theory" into layman’s
terms, this meant he was working on a theory that
would put the entire universe into a mathematical
equation, and he had the attention of the world.
Reporters parked outside his home in hopes of an
interview. Many kept all night vigils waiting for
the story. As a rule, Einstein did not chase the
spotlight and dodged the requests often. It was the
same in this instance as well.
He
did, however, allow an interview with one reporter
from the New York Times. You see, the New York Times
was edited by Carr Van Anda, and Van Anda had found
an error in a previous Einstein's equation. Image
that! The editor of the New York Times finding an
error in the math of Einstein! Don’t you think
that Einstein must have been irate that the editor
would point this out? He must have been insulted.
Actually, on the contrary, Einstein was impressed
and that is the reason he allowed an interview to
this reporter from the New York Times. You see
Einstein was not afraid to be wrong, and when
corrected he was not insulted.
At Princeton, Albert Einstein was more like a kindly
uncle. When he arrived in 1935, and was asked what
he would require for his study, he replied, "A
desk, some pads and a pencil, and a large
wastebasket - to hold all of my mistakes."
Albert Einstein spent his last two decades trying to
reconcile quantum physics with relativity. His holy
grail -- a so-called "Unified Field
Theory" -- eluded him. He once casually
mentioned to a colleague that he was on the verge of
his "greatest discovery ever," before
admitting that "it didn't pan out" just
two weeks later.
One day in his twilight years, he received a letter
from a 15-year-old girl asking for help with a
homework assignment. She soon received a curious
reply: a page full of unintelligible diagrams, along
with an attempt at consolation: "Do not worry
about your difficulties in mathematics,"
Einstein told her, "I can assure you that mine
are much greater!"
The man who was the greatest success at mathematics
also failed a lot at them. But that didn't stop him
from moving forward.
Not only was he willing to risk at math, he also
risked when he gambled. While attending a physics
symposium in Las Vegas one year, Albert Einstein, to
the astonishment of many of his sober-minded
colleagues, spent a fair amount of time at the craps
and roulette tables.
"Einstein is gambling as if there were no
tomorrow," an eminent physicist remarked one
day. "What troubles me," another replied,
"is that he may know something!"
Too often in life, we attempt to spend all our
energy demonstrating how we are right instead of
accepting constructive criticism and getting better.
This is not true of Einstein. Not only was he not
afraid of being wrong, he was not afraid of being
corrected. Inquire of yourself, ask yourself
honestly: How do you respond when you are
corrected? Do you lash out or are you
grateful?
If you want to develop the mind of Einstein, you
must not be afraid to fail and allow yourself the
opportunity to fail. Herman Melville put it
this way: "He who has never failed
somewhere, that man can not be great."
Thomas Edison when he was constructing the light
bulb built 1,000 prototypes that did not work before
he successfully built the one that we still use
today and will forever. A reporter asked
Edison how it felt to fail 1,000 times. Edison
replied, "You misunderstand. I did not fail
1,000 times. I successfully found 1,000 ways
that the light bulb would not work."
Edison, like Einstein, did not view failure the way
so many do. They viewed it as acceptable and a
way to learn and grow.
The fear of failure could have paralyzed Einstein
and Edison, yet it did not. What about
you? Are you so paralyzed with fear that you
have settled for mediocrity? Don't allow that
to happen. Embrace risk and failure.
Learn that it is okay to be wrong, and run headlong
into the rewards of risk as Einstein did.
If
you want to catch beasts you don't see everyday,
You have to go places quite out-of-the-way.
You have to go places no others can get to.
You have to get cold, and you have to get wet, too.
Dr. Seuss
Reproduced
with permission from the Ron White Ezine. To
subscribe to Ron White's Ezine, go to http://www.memoryinamonth.com
or send an email with Join in the subject to ronwhite@yoursuccessstore.com
Copyright Ron White; all rights reserved worldwide. |
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Do
not compare yourself
with others, for you are
a unique and wonderful creation.
Make your own beautiful
footprints
in the snow.
Barbara
Kimball
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The
roots of love sink down and deep and
strike out far, and they are arteries that feed
our lives, so we must see that they get the water
and sun they need so they can nourish us.
And when you put something good into
the world, something good comes back to you.
Merle
Shain
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