Choose

If you don’t choose in your own life, you will be pulled along by others’ choices.

Make your choices, or they will be made for you.

Talent……into Ability

“Everybody has talent.  Turning them into abilities takes hard work” – Michael Jordan

Do the work.  

When nobody is looking, or even caring, do the work you are meant to do.

Do it for you.  

Be great for you.

Feel yourself getting better, doing it smoother and easier and getting better results.

Do the work and do it well.

It’s what makes you better when you care about being the best you can be.

"We've got time"

“If you think you have all the time in the world, it will take all the time in the world.” – Jen Sincero

When you lengthen the time frame, things slow down.

When you shorten the time frame, progress speeds up.

Funny how that happens.

What do you need/want to get done?

By when?

The Sin of Send

Angry?

Stay away from the keyboard.

Wait.

Too many options?

When I was 12 growing up on the east side of Bridgeport, once in a while on a hot summer evening my brother and I would walk 10 blocks to Dairy Queen on East Main Street.  We didn’t have enough money for a sundae with fudge and nuts or a sundae in a mini New York Yankees batting helmet.  Small cone.  Vanilla or chocolate – that was the decision.  It was an easy decision for me.  I preferred vanilla.

Today, there are 50 flavors of ice cream.  Things have become cheap, and even if you don’t have a lot of money, there are a bazillion options.  You can spend oodles of time scrolling online to try to make the best decision, and just when you think you’ve decided, other options reveal themselves.

In one way, it’s a blessing.  We should be grateful we can spend so much time deciding on the style of our 12th pair of shoes, rather than how we are going to afford to pay the rent or feed our family (though some still do).  What a wonderful world we get to live in.

But are all these options with products, people to be in relationships with, what to eat, what to do on Saturday night, what to drive, what to watch – is all this affecting our ability to focus our brainpower on one thing?  Is it hurting our ability to go deep?  Is it hurting our desire to commit to one thing for long?

Social, consumerism, and all the rest – each of us deals with all of it differently.

Has the explosion of information and choices, unmanaged by us, made life too complicated?

Is inner peace more difficult with all this if we leave ourselves wide open each day to all of this?

Are you fully committed?

These days there are a lot of people walking around who can’t make a commitment.  To make a really full commitment to a relationship, a career, a profession, a long project is to cut off all other options – and that’s the problem.

If you’ve made a backup plan it means you haven’t made a commitment you really believe.  

Decide comes from the Latin word decir, which means to “cut off” other options.  

There is nothing so powerful as a person who has made up their mind, fully believes in what they are doing, and is fully committed 100%.  Their chances of success at being extraordinary at what they do are very good.

Have you fully committed in the important areas of your life?

Desperation Repels, Gratitude Attracts

Just because you need it very badly doesn’t mean the world will give it to you.

Be grateful and show it.  That works much better.

The toughest person you'll ever lead

There’s someone who is hard for you to lead.

They want to do the right thing, but they want leisure and entertainment.

They are constantly distracted by images on little screens that take them away from their world and into another.

They love to eat and hate to sweat.

They are tough for you to get to do the right thing.

They procrastinate, and always say “I’ll do better – tomorrow”.

They want instant gratification and it’s hard for them to make the connection between discipline today and the quality of tomorrow.

They want lots of things, and as soon as they get some money, they get as many as they can.

They buy things that go down in value and not up.

They listen, but fool themselves and make excuses, even when they know you are right.

They want easy days, and live life more superficially than they could.

They don’t use much of their potential.

Who is this person you are having trouble with?

The Power of Good Words

Words are all we’ve got.  It’s the language our brains our brains think in – and it’s the same for everyone else.

Words carry meaning, and meanings create feelings.  

We can manufacture words in an instant – for free.

We can say words that make others feel good.  People that feel good around us, because of us, are more pleasant and respond in kind.  They are more likely to want to be with us, work with us, and help us.

Some people need hope and encouragement.  Providing that to them is free and easy if we have a mind for it.

Some people need the insight and knowledge that we have.  All people like praise and acknowledgment.

If we deliver positive words, they come back to us.  If we speak positive words to ourselves and others, even in advance of actual positive things happening, they can make those good things come about.

Words are what we’ve got to make our world and our lives better.

Make and deliver as many positive ones as you can. 

The Power of Words

“A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever.” – Jessalyn West

You can probably remember the words someone said to you at the right time to hurt you.  They are seared into your mind.  When you think of that person, you recall how they made you feel.

Do you think there are people out there that feel the same about you?

Do you think they’d line up in your corner when you need help?

Let’s be careful.  Pause when you are upset.  Don’t speak until you think about the long-term results that your words will have – on them and you.