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September
9, 2008 |
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| Some
people choose their ideas the way they choose their
clothes--according to the latest fashion.
Tolstoy |
Every
step you take should be a prayer. And if every step you
take is a prayer, then you will always be walking in a
sacred manner.
Oglala
Lakota Holyman |
| People
acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a
particular way--you become just by performing just actions,
temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by
performing brave actions.
Aristotle |
Spiritual
surrender is not about doing nothing. It is about releasing
what's not working in our lives, asking for guidance, and
opening ourselves up to the opportunities that come our way,
then acting on them.
Kathy
Cordova |
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Positive
Ways to Deal with Negativity
Jon Gordon
With
the mortgage meltdown, floods in the Midwest, $4 a gallon
for gas, food prices, the economy, famine, war in Iraq,
etc., many would agree that there is a lot of
negativity in the world and certainly a lot to complain
about. And yet, while traveling the country this past
month, ironically for the No Complaining Rule Tour, I met
a number of people who inspired me with the positive ways
they were dealing with the negativity in their life. In
spite of their circumstances they chose to view their
situation with a positive perspective… which so often
makes all the difference. Since we all could benefit from
their example, here are 5 positive ways to deal with
negativity.
1. Find the Gift - Richard Bach said every
problem has a gift for you in its hands. One woman came up
to me and said that because of the cost of gas her family
is driving less and as a result they are spending more
time at home and having dinner together more often. She
said this “negative” situation has been very
“positive” for her family. Another person said he is
taking the bus to work instead of driving and as a result
he has met a lot of interesting people.
2.
Look at the Bright Side - One gentlemen joked
that because of the cost of gas he now has a great excuse
to not drive and see his negative relatives.
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3.
Zoom Focus - It doesn’t matter what the pundits
say on television. It doesn’t matter what Joe and Sally
in your office are doing. It doesn’t matter who is
playing office politics. All that matters is what you do
every day to grow yourself and your business. Focus on
being positive and taking positive action every day. Be
like the real estate agent who told me that he doesn’t
focus on what the news and newspapers say. He focuses on
what he can do every day to be successful. He focuses on
marketing his business, taking care of his clients, and
building loyal relationships. What things do you need to
Zoom Focus on?
4. Focus on the Opportunity Not the Challenge
- Behind every innovation and solution is a story about
someone who said there has to be a better way. I bet Henry
Ford was walking behind a horse when he had the idea for
his automobile. History shows us that a lot of
people and a lot of companies make a lot of money during
recessions. The key is to find the opportunity. Where is
the market heading? What do people want and need? What
will they want in the future? Now is a great time to build
a positive team with great talent. Now is the time to gain
market share while so many give up. Now is a great time to
determine who is on your bus and who is off your
bus. Now is the time to be indispensable to your
company and demonstrate how valuable you are.
5.
Be a Positive Influence on Others - I received an
email from Ruthanne in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She wrote:
“As
you are probably aware, we were recently hit with a 500
year flood. My neighborhood was impacted the worst and
most of our homes, mine included, are a total loss.
People tell me I have been the most positive person they
know who was directly impacted by the flood. I don’t
have a lot of time today (first day back at work in 2
wks) to tell you all the positive things that have been
going on in our city and in my life, but I will be
writing an article when this is all over with. I did
want to say though that I have not complained throughout
all the devastating catastrophe because of the knowledge
I learned both from your seminar, books and
newsletters.”
Ruthanne
could have chosen to wallow in self-pity and negativity,
but instead she chose to deal with her negative situation
by being a positive influence on others. Think about how
many people she is positively impacting in her community.
Now think about the positive influence you can have on
people at work, in your community and at home.
Every
day simply ask yourself “How can I be a positive
influence where I am, right now?”
Stay
Positive!
Jon
Gordon is a speaker, consultant, and author of the
international bestseller The
Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Lift, Work, and Team
with Positive Energy, which has inspired readers
the world over. He and his books have been featured on CNN
and on NBC's Today
show, and in Forbes,
Fast Company, O:
The Oprah Magazine, the Wall
Street Journal, and the New
York Times. Clients such as the Jacksonville
Jaguars. the PGA Tour, Northwestern Mutual, JPMorgan
Chase, and Publix Supermarkets also call all Jon to get
their team "on the bus" and moving in the right
direction. Jon also impacts thousands of teachers and
students each year through his work with schools,
universities, and nonprofit organizations. He is a
graduate of Cornell University and holds a master's degree
in teaching from Emory University. He lives in northeast
Florida with his wife and two high-energy children.
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In
the spirit of his international best-selling
book, The Energy Bus, Jon Gordon once
again shares an inspiring and enlightening
story that reveals a powerful way to tackle
the biggest problem in business and life
today… negativity. It costs
organizations billions of dollars and impacts
the morale, productivity and health of
individuals and teams. Based on an
actual company that created and implemented The
No Complaining Rule, Gordon delivers an
engaging story filled with innovative ideas
and practical strategies to develop positive
leaders, organizations and teams. For
anyone looking to turn negative energy into
positive solutions, The No Complaining Rule
shares powerful principles and an actionable
plan to win the battle against individual and
organizational negativity. |
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Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh
Honesty It
looks like honesty has become a victim once more in
the campaign for president. It seemed for a
while like this year's campaigns were avoiding the
mud-slinging and the outright lies of the last
several campaigns, but there's an entire article
this morning with quotations from the campaign trail
that are making certain claims, followed by the
accurate information that proves the statements to
be either misleading or completely untrue. I
think it's a good thing that most of us never will
run for public office. The allure of the power
most certainly could make us decide to say things
either that we know aren't true or that we haven't
taken the time to verify. And if we do
something like that, just what are we saying about
how much we value (or don't value) honesty in our
lives? Once we make a decision to say
something that we know is untrue or that easily
could be untrue or misleading, aren't we making a
decision to compromise our integrity? I
know now a couple of people whom I would not like to
see in the highest office in our country because of
things that I've heard them say that simply haven't
been true. I've heard half-truths, also, that
have been designed to manipulate audiences into
believing certain things in the hopes that those
beliefs will cause people to vote certain
ways. [I'm not going to address who these
candidates are because I believe that doing so would
violate the spirit of the website--this is not a
politically oriented site, but honesty is certainly
a universal theme.] Honesty
always is a decision. While there are many
people who say that we should be completely honest
all the time, there are situations in our lives that
lead us to be a little less than honest. If
one of my students came up to me and asked me how I
liked her new dress, I certainly wouldn't tell her
that I thought it was ugly if I didn't like
it. I'd look for a way to spare her feelings
from the brutality of the direct honesty by
responding in a way that I feel wouldn't hurt her
but also wouldn't give the message of "I love
it--it's beautiful!" And not everyone
deserves complete honesty from me. If a
complete stranger or someone who isn't close to me
asks me where I'm going and I feel that it's none of
his or her business, and I also want to avoid the
confrontation that would arise if I say, "It's
none of your business," then there's really
nothing wrong with saying "I don't feel
good. I'm going home." And I'd be
completely justified in doing so, even if I were
going somewhere else. But
most of the time, in most situations, honesty really
is the only way to go if we want to be living
positive, happy lives. Lies have a way of
coming back to us in the form of anger,
disappointment, distrust, even hatred. What we
send out into the world definitely comes back to us,
and when we send willful lies that are intended to
deceive, then we're determining what will come into
our lives in the near or even distant future.
If we want good things to come to us in the world,
then we have to put good things out there, and being
honest most definitely qualifies as something good
that we can share with the world.
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Don't
wish me happiness--I don't expect to be happy.
It's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and
strength and a sense of humor-I will need them all.
Anne
Morrow Lindbergh |
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From
"Self-Reliance"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I read the
other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were
original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition
in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they
instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To
believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in
your private heart is true for all people, — that is genius.
Speak
your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for
the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first
thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last
Judgment.
Familiar as
the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to
Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and
traditions, and spoke not what others but what they thought.
We should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes
across our minds from within, more than the lustre of the firmament
of bards and sages. Yet we dismiss without notice our thought,
because it is ours. In every work of genius we recognize our own
rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated
majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us
than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression
with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of
voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say
with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt
all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own
opinion from another.
There is a
time in every person's education when he or she arrives at the conviction
that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that we must
take ourselves for better, for worse, as our portion; that though
the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn
can come to us but through our toil bestowed on that plot of
ground which is given to us to till. The power which resides in us
is new in nature, and none but we knows what that is which we
can do, nor do we know until we have tried. 
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Not
for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much
impression on us, and another none. This sculpture in the memory
is not without pre-established harmony. The eye was placed where
one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea
which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as
proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted,
but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. We
are relieved and gay when we have put our hearts into our work and done
our best; but what we have said or done otherwise, shall give us no peace.
It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the
attempt our genius deserts us; no muse befriends; no invention,
no hope.
Trust
thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the
place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events. Great people have always
done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their
age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy
was seated at their heart, working through their hands,
predominating in all their being. And we are now men and women, and must
accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not
minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing
before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors,
obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
These are
the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and
inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in
conspiracy against the manhood and womanhood of every one of its members.
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for
the better securing of their bread to each shareholder, to surrender
the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request
is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not
realities and creators, but names and customs.
Whoso would
be a man or woman must be a nonconformist. They who would gather immortal
palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must
explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the
integrity of your own mind.
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During the
first period of a person's life the greatest danger
is not to take the risk. When once the risk has been taken,
then the greatest danger is to risk too much. By not risking at
first
one turns aside and serves trivialities; in the second case, by risking
too much,
one turns aside to the fantastic and perhaps to presumption.
Sören
Kierkegaard
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The majority of people are not awake; it is only
here and there
that we find one even partially awake. Practically all of us,
as a result,
are living lives that are unworthy almost the name of lives,
compared
to those we might be living, and that lie within our easy
grasp. While it is true that each life is in and of Divine Being,
hence always
one with it, in order that this great fact bear fruit in
individual lives,
each one must be conscious of it; he or she must know it in
thought,
and then live continually in this consciousness.
Ralph
Waldo Trine
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When I was six or seven years old, growing up
in Pittsburgh, I used to take
a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to
find. I was
greatly excited. . . at the thought of the first lucky
passerby who would receive
in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the
universe.
I've been thinking about seeing. There are
lots of things to see, unwrapped
gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded
and strewn with pennies
cast broadside from a generous hand.
Annie
Dillard |
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24
THINGS TO REMEMBER AS EACH DAY PASSES
1.
Your
presence is a present to the world.
2.
You're
unique; one of a kind.
3.
Your life
can be what you want it to be.
4.
Take the
days just one at a time.
5.
Count your
blessings, not your troubles.
6.
You'll
make it through whatever comes along.
7.
Within you
are so many answers.
8.
Understand, have courage, be strong.
9.
Don't put
limits on yourself.
10.
So many
dreams are waiting to be realized.
11.
Decisions
are too important to leave to chance.
12.
Reach for
your peak, your goal, and your prize.
13.
Nothing
wastes more energy than worrying.
14.
The
longer one carries a problem, the heavier it gets.
15.
Don't
take things too seriously.
16.
Live a
life of serenity, not a life of regrets.
17.
Remember
that a little love goes a long way.
18.
Remember
that a lot goes forever.
19.
Remember
that friendship is a wise investment.
20.
Life's
treasures are people -- together.
21.
Realize
that nothing is ever too late.
22.
Do
ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
23.
Have
health and hope and happiness.
24.
Take the
time to wish upon a star.
Author
Unknown
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