Build you up, build me up.

Some people seem to feel that if they tear down someone else it will lift them up.  It never works.

There are always mistakes, failings and shortcomings in anyone – that’s a given.  We are all human and we can’t help it.  Look for the good in others and you’ll find it – and find it in you.

First – Big Thoughts

Only great thinking can lead to great achievement.  

What are you thinking about?

Be careful what you dwell on

You can not find joy by wallowing in pain – yours or others.

Think about what you want, and stay on it most of the time.

How to Prosper

You cannot build simply by abstaining from demolition.  Being good is the price for not going backwards, but it is not a ticket to higher prosperity.  It’s going to take more than that.  It’s going to take productivity.

Are you producing something other people want?

Living Examples of Results

All around you are people who are living examples of what happens when you live like this or live like that; make these decisions or those decisions; have this attitude or that one; or learn or do or act this way or that.

Are you observing and understanding?

Distorted Reality

You can’t perceive reality undistorted by your emotions. Understanding yourself, how you feel, and how this filter affects your lens of the world, is important for your success and happiness.

Look back to your beliefs, events, interpretations and fears to control your emotions.  If you can’t control your feelings, you can’t control much else.

"Watch me"

Two weeks ago I asked that we gather in financial support of Sandra Weiler, the courageous woman with cerebral palsy who bought her own home in 1998, but now was being evicted due to foreclosure.  She had nowhere to go.  You responded. I received 105 checks from Think Daily subscribers totaling $21,500.  I matched every dollar you donated for a total of $43,000.  On Thursday evening I went to meet Sandra for the first time and present your checks to her.  She was blown away and incredibly grateful.  She will stay in her home that has been customized for her because of you.

I had the pleasure of talking with Sandra for an hour and a half.  Cerebral palsy is “a loss of motor skills with involuntary spasms caused by brain damage present at birth”.  She speaks with great effort – courageously producing every word.  She was deeply touched that strangers whom she has never met came to her aid in this way. Today’s Think Daily is from Sandra Weiler, PhD.

She told me – “When I was born my parents were told that their daughter would be a vegetable.  She will never walk, and never talk.  The best thing you can do is put her in an institution and move on with your lives.  Her mother would have none of it.  When Sandra was a child her mother told her “I will not do anything for you.  I need to see you try to do it first.  If you can’t do it, I will do it with you, but not for you”.

The world told Sandra, “You will never have a job”.  She said “Watch me”, and opened her own day care center, working 14 hours a day, and built it to 18 employees and 100 children. The world told Sandra “You will never be able to live on your own”.  She said “Watch me”, and bought her own home and lived there, on her own.  The world told Sandra “you will not beat bladder cancer”.  She said “Watch me”, and six years and six operations later, she did. 

Sandra was still writing thank you notes to the 180 people that attended her wedding, as she began writing thank you notes to the people that came to her husbands funeral. Sandra helped others, staying with people who were dying offering comfort, working all she could, even today one day a week teaching at UConn – the only day she doesn’t have to see a doctor or have physical therapy.  She doesn’t want to rely on others, her beloved mother made her independent. 

Some in the world told Sandra “You cannot stay in your home now.”  You, the Think Daily Community said – “Watch her”.

"Self Government"

If you don’t govern yourself well (how’s that going?), someone else will do it for you – and you’re not going to like it.

Lead you.

Need a hero? It's you.

You are making up your own life each day anyway…decide to be the hero of your own story.  

What would the hero do?

Believing Self-Talk and Self-Torment

I have been jumping motorcycles off of ramps 25 feet high and 75 feet distance for 10 years. I’ve done it thousands of times. It’s called “freestyle motocross”. I do some easy tricks, but nothing like my brother Rick, who is a paid pro traveling North America doing shows. Why?  It’s fun, challenging, and the act of conquering one’s fear is liberating. I do it with my son which is very cool.  It keeps me young at 50 years old.  When it’s wet, muddy, windy, darkish, if my bike isn’t right, or if any other factor is off, you think twice.

Early last year I had an injury, (not from jumping the ramp) and didn’t jump for a while.  A voice crept into my head that it was too dangerous for me – that I had lost my timing, I couldn’t get the distance right, and that some tragedy would befall me if I jumped again.  I was hearing this voice and it was scaring me.  I didn’t jump that ramp and its 75 foot gap to safety for a month.  I wanted to, and approached it each time I rode on the track, (motocross track and freestyle motocross ramp are different) but I pulled off before the ramp – I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  The voice…

I watch my son Tanner hit it many times each outing, but I stuck to the track.  I was haunted, and Tanner knew it.  A one-month jumping embargo became two, and nearly three.  I knew it was not valid, but I was freaked out.  Ten years of flying a motorcycle and now I’m chicken.  Why?  That voice inside my head.  At night in bed, driving…anytime I thought about jumping I started to sweat and become afraid. 

One day I had enough.  The torture and stress of the voice was going to kill me even if I never jumped again!  I’d have rather crashed and take the consequences than listen to this awful haunting anymore.  To hell with it…I made the hairpin turn onto the 100 foot long runway, approaching the ramp – second gear, the ramp coming at me like a vertical metal wall, smooth, push into the 8 foot high curved transition with my legs and smooth acceleration using my ears and g force for how much… suspension fully compressed…leave the ramp’s lip into space, suspension uncompresses, rising high above the earth, the ground falls away…at the apex, weightless, feels awesome, body English, place it down front wheel a hair before the rear in the sweet spot on the downhill landing, roll it out.  Perfect!  Goodbye voice!  I was back in control of myself!  What relief!  Prisoner no more!  Whew!

Boy, was I needlessly paralyzed for allowing that voice to haunt me.  Fear is good – to protect us from real danger.  But we develop fears to stuff we know we can do, like I did.  It was killing me – for no good valid reason. Imagined fears hold us back.

What voice is in you telling you that you can’t?  Making you afraid?  Face your fear by doing what you fear – and silence your tormenter forever.