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July 10, 2007
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Learning
to understand our dreams is a matter of learning to understand our
heart's language.
Anne
Faraday
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Look at your life as a
beautiful fabric woven from wonderful rich colours and fine
cloth. Make a plan, one that is full of obtainable goals for a
happy life. Read through the plan daily so that it becomes a
permanent part of your thought process.
Sara
Henderson
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The people
who do things make mistakes, but they never make the biggest mistake of
all--doing nothing.
Benjamin
Franklin
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Expect
the Best from People
Alan Loy McGinnis
In
Toronto some time ago, I gave a speech to an executive
club, and after the meeting an elderly man came up to
talk. He was tall, slender, and elegantly
dressed. At 74, he was retiring from a lifetime of
manufacturing lead pencils. I thought to myself,
"What a boring way to make a living," and said,
"I'll bet you're glad to be getting out of that
business, aren't you?"
"Oh,
no," he replied. "In fact, I'm going to
miss it like crazy. And you know what I'm going to
miss most? The friends I've made in this
business. Some of my suppliers and customers have
been my best friends for 40 years. And several of
our upper-level managers are guys I hired right out of
college. I've had a lot of satisfaction helping them
succeed."
As
we talked, I learned that this man had built up a
multimillion-dollar company and had recently sold it for a
very large sum. His success should not be all that
surprising, however, considering his deep-rooted belief in
people. He had mastered the art of finding the good
side of everyone and building on that. And in the
process of helping other people succeed, he had made a lot
of money as well.
In
any business that involves others--either as your
employees or as your customers--attitude is
everything. In the simplest terms, the people who
like people and who believe that those they lead have the
best of intentions will get the best from them. On
the other hand, the police-type leader, who is constantly
on the watch for everyone's worst side, will find that
people get defensive and self-protective and that the
doors to their inner possibilities quickly close.
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How to
Turn Your Child into a Thief
More
and more psychological studies show that we have the power
to call out the worst or the best in people by our
expectations. The executive who believes "you
just can't get good help anymore" and the teacher who
is convinced that most kids are lazy hold a remarkable
negative power over those people.
Psychologist
C. Knight Aldrich, who worked for years with delinquent
children, wrote a fascinating article some time ago in a
psychology journal explaining how parents can quickly turn
their children into thieves. Here's the way to do
it. Let us say that your son--as most children do at
some time or another--engages in some petty theft.
Perhaps he steals a package of candy. If you say to
him, "Now we know what you are--you're a thief!
We'll be watching you from now on," it is quite
likely that he will steal more and can quickly graduate
from stealing candy to stealing cars.
On
the other hand, you can react with both firmness and
gentleness by saying, "Son, that wasn't like you at
all. We'll have to go back to the store and clear
this up, but we're not going to make a huge thing of
it. What you did was wrong, you know it was wrong,
and we're sure you won't do it again." After
such treatment most kids' stealing careers are over.
The principle is very old: by assuming a negative
attitude and reflecting back to people all the data about
their weaknesses, you put them in touch with their faults
and their behavior becomes worse. By assuming a
positive attitude and concentrating on their strong
aspects, you put them in contact with their good
attributes and their behavior becomes better.
The
Pleasure of Discovering Hidden Talent
When
we elect such a positive view, lots of buried talent
begins to surface. Elbert Hubbard said, "There
is something that is much more scarce, something finer
far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability
to recognize ability." Average people have a
way of accomplishing extraordinary things for teachers and
leaders who are patient enough to wait until ability
becomes apparent.
The
history books are full of stories of gifted persons whose
talents were overlooked by a procession of people until
someone believed in them. Einstein was four years
old before he could speak and seven before he could
read. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.
A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had
"no good ideas." Leo Tolstoy flunked out
of college, and Werner von Braun failed ninth-grade
algebra. Haydn gave up ever making a musician of
Beethoven, who seemed a slow and plodding young man with
no apparent talent--except a belief in music.
There
is a lesson is such stories: different people
develop at different rates, and the best motivators are
always on the lookout for hidden capacities.
One
chief executive officer, when asked, "What are you in
business for?" replied, "I am in the business of
growing people--people who are stronger, more autonomous,
more self-reliant, more competent. We make and sell
at a profit things that people want to buy so we can pay
for all this."
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Using
fascinating case
studies and anecdotes,
Alan Loy McGinnis
explains how you can
put twelve key principles
to work in all areas
of your life to gain
the satisfaction that
comes from bringing
out the best in people. |
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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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In our life
there is a single color, as on an artist's palette,
which provides the meaning of life and art.
It is the color of love.
Marc Chagall |
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The
Best That You Can Be
Gail
Pursell Elliott
I
have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And
I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker;
And,
in short, I was afraid.
T.
S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J.
Alfred Prufrock
Most
of us do the best we can on a daily basis.
The problem is that our personal best changes on a
day to day basis based on a lot of variables.
If you have ever suffered from what I refer to as
"functional retardation" you know what I mean.
When
we are under continual stress or dealing with a crisis
situation, all sorts of biochemical changes occur in our
bodies.
One of these is the release of the stress hormone
epinephrine.
Our
pupils dilate, our blood pressure goes up, our ability to
communicate is reduced, our ability to compromise is
reduced, and even the way we use language changes.
Although a lot of our normal functions are
diminished, these are just the times when we may expect
the most from ourselves.
One
of the ways that we can call forth our personal best
despite the circumstances in which we find ourselves is to
work through fear.
Writer Frank Herbert referred to fear as "the
mind killer" in his epic novel Dune.
Paraphrasing his statement and using it as a
personal affirmation can be really helpful.
"Fear
is the mind killer
I
will face my fear.
I
will let the fear pass through me
And
only I will remain."
The
important point of this statement is that fear comes,
passes, and leaves.
It does not adhere to us unless we grab hold, hang
onto, and internalize it.
Facing
our fear may also involve embracing it and letting it go.
Looking it in the eye, acknowledging it, then
setting it free as being something that is not solid or
lasting but meant to pass through and on.
When
we identify with our fears by making negative statements
about ourselves, we have forgotten who we truly are.
Each
of us is a precious one-of-a-kind event that is necessary
for the world to move forward.
There is something that only we can do, a destiny
that we create and fulfill for ourselves that impacts the
whole.
We
may not feel that we are worthy or entitled but that is
simply a byproduct of fear and as unsubstantial. It simply
is not true.
We
have more impact on the lives of others and the way things
play out than we can ever imagine.
We have more power than we can contemplate.
Perhaps understanding the magnitude of this is the
greatest fear of all.
For then we understand that we are responsible for
our own destiny and must let go of any thoughts of blaming
anything outside of ourselves for who we are.
In
reality, this understanding sets us free.
For though we rarely can control the situations
that come to us in life or the word and actions of others,
we can always control what we do with them.
Situations
come to pass, they never come to stay.
And when we allow them to pass and disappear into
the past like shadows, our vibrant spiritual selves
remain, powerful in the present moment. That is the
constant, the unchanging, in an ever changing world.
Have
a great day and be good to yourself.
You truly deserve it!
© Gail Pursell Elliott All Rights Reserved.
"The Dignity and Respect Lady" Motivational
Speaker and Visionary; Innovations "Training With a
Can-Do Attitude"TM; Box
552 , Roland
, IA 50236-0552, 515-388-9600 |
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A greater poverty than
that caused by lack of money is the poverty of
unawareness. Men and women go about the world unaware of
the beauty, the goodness, and the glories in it. Their
souls are poor. It is better to have a poor pocketbook
than to suffer from a poor soul.
Jerry
Fleishman
The miracles of the church seem
to me to rest
not so much on faces or voices or healing power
suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our
perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment
our eyes can see and our ears can hear
what is there about us always.
Willa Cather
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Where's
the Fire?
Emmet Fox
What are
you rushing about for, might one ask in a friendly
way. Why did you dash out of the house this morning
as if a tiger were after you? Why have you been
racing about all day like a neurotic grasshopper?
Why do you charge along subway platforms like
cavalry? What is the idea of writhing with
impatience when your phone call isn't answered inside of
three seconds? Why do you sometimes finish people's
sentences for them and "take the words out of their
mouths"? Why do you risk your neck dashing into
the street thirty seconds before the green light makes it
safe?
What is
it all about? You appear to be going somewhere--but
where? Surely all this frenzied rushing should have
a logical objective--but has it?
Actually,
I think you will find that it has not. I think if
you analyze your movements for one whole day you will
discover that three-quarters of your activities have
really been wasted motion. You could have done a
better day's work with much more profit to yourself and
others with about 25 percent of the energy, quietly and
scientifically applied--besides going to bed with healthy
fatigue instead of nervous prostration.
Where are
you going? Well, I do not know about you, but I do
know exactly where most people are going--to the
cemetery. We know that unless we regenerate we shall
die some day. Now people who are regenerating do not
rush, because part of the regeneration treatment is to
cultivate poise, calm, and patience. So all the
rushing and dashing and trampling on other people is just
in order to get--to the cemetery. Hardly seems worth
it, does it?
Walk
along any busy street and study the rushing, surging
throng, and note that they are all rushing somewhere--to
the graveyard. Of course, the route will be a
circuitous one, they will loop round thousands of miles
first--but that is the goal to which they are rushing.
At the
entrance to a large cemetery near New York a notice says,
with unconscious irony, "one way traffic only."
Now, is
it good enough to wear yourself out, undermine your
health, and worry all the joy out of your life just to go
off and be buried?
Take it
easy. Enjoy life reasonably as you go along.
You are really in eternity now, and in eternity no wise
person hurries. God does not want us to die.
It is we who kill ourselves with hurry and worry. If
we understood God's laws and applied them, we could live
very long lives on this earth in strong vigorous health,
and then, when there was no more to learn here, transcend
consciously. Some day the race will learn
this. Meanwhile, take it easy and trust in God.
1937
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Perhaps no
phenomenon contains so much destructive feeling
as "moral indignation," which permits envy or hate
to be acted out under the guise of virtue.
Erich Fromm
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Mission
statements represent your belief system—the priorities,
values and principles that measure your decisions. It
provides overall direction and clarifies your purpose and
meaning. When you clearly know what you want to be and to
do in your life, you feel strong in your sense of mission.
You’re no longer driven by everything that happens to
you. Rather, you feel a deep and complete commitment to
following your innermost values.
Dawn
Angier |
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Alone
in his car heading west, it's easy for Jason to feel sorry
for himself and mad at the world. But then he gives
a ride to Hector and learns life isn't as negative as we
sometimes see it. The friendship between this young
man and his 70-year-old passenger is an inspiring story of
love and of dealing with obstacles in life. It's a
story that you'll treasure long after you've finished
reading. Three
Cavaliers, Tom Walsh's second published novel, is now available in book form! Click
on the image to the left to order! |
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We've
been looking for a way to recommend many of the books
and movies that inspire us to live our lives more fully, and
Amazon
finally has provided it. Check out our new bookstore,
which is full
of inspirational and motivational material. We'd also
appreciate any
suggestions you might have of what to stock it with--please
visit
our feedback page
to make recommendations! |
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| Hyla
Brook
By June
our brook's run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)--
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat--
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with the brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.
Robert
Frost
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