Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." – Joshua J. Marine

The challenges in our lives are actually opportunities to find and create meaning in our lives.

It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.

With each new challenge, we have the choice to make – face it and overcome and create more meaning or give in and create more regret.

Which will today bring for you – meaning or regret?

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. – Socrates

What a great way to look at the habits we have and the habits we would like to have.

As you look at the habits of your life, are you focusing your energy on fighting the old instead of building new ones?

Are you focusing on old eating habits instead of building a new exercise habit?

Are you focusing on going to bed early instead of getting up earlier?

Are you focusing on old spending habits instead of building a habit of doing a budget every month?

Our old habits are intertwined with our new, but by focusing our efforts on the new, positive habit we can move forward faster toward our long term goals.

Something I’ve noticed is that new positive habits tend to crowd out the old negative ones.

Exercising regularly makes us want to eat better.

Getting up early makes it easier to get to bed on time.

Keeping a budget and tracking our expenses makes it easier to control our spending.

Pick something you want to change and find a new, positive habit to drive the change. Let the old, negative habits die off when they are crowded out by the new.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

Today is Oliver’s first birthday. Hard to believe our little guy is officially one.

With each passing year for each of our little one’s young lives, I am reminded of a couple of really important.

First, I am reminded of how lucky I am. Not only to have happy and healthy kids, but to be married to the best mom and wife in the biz.

Next, I am reminded of all the potential that each of them (and each of you) possess. With each passing year I imagine each of them and all the possibilities their future holds and I am amazed.

I am also reminded of how bright our future is. We here all this talk about how things are so bad and "it just ain’t what it used to be." I disagree. When I look at my kids (and the vast majority of the other kids I talk to), I can’t help but picture a future that "ain’t what it used to be" because it is so much better.

I could go on and on, but I will end with this reminder:

Our time is limited. We don’t have a never-ending supply of time. As each year passes, I am reminded more and more to make the most of the time I have with these three special kiddos (and all of you).

Happy Birthday to Oliver.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I went in search of Irish quotes and proverbs.

This one in particular struck at the heart of what I believe to be one of the most endearing of the Irish idiosyncrasies, hospitality.

The Irish are well known for their hospitality and welcoming nature.

I have come to think this is part of what leads to their general cheeriness. Life is best lived through service and hospitality towards others.

When we put others first our best shines through.

Make it a great day filled with happy hospitality.

Jake

Here are some of the other great Irish sayings I found:

It’s easier to halve the potato when there’s love.

May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks. May your heart be as light as a song. May each day bring you bright, happy hours that stay with you all the year long.

Lose an hour in the morning and you’ll be looking for it all day.

If you buy what you don’t need you might have to sell what you do.

Better good manners than good looks.

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind.

Pity him who makes an opinion a certainty.

BAD – People are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored. – Eugene Peterson

JW – Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. – William James

MS – A good plan violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. – George S. Patton

EB* – No one else ‘makes us angry.’ We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. – Jim Rohn

JD – The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. – Socrates

I really liked the quote that Jamie W shared from William James.

I have been reading a story of a young man and his experiences caddying at St. Andrews.

This William James quote reminded me of the biggest lesson I have learned so far: open your eyes to all of the possibilities that are available to you and then follow your passion.

We have more room to run than we thought.

Make it a great day.

Jake

http://youtu.be/pWp6kkz-pnQ

Sometimes the simplest messages include the most meaning.

Don’t give up.

How many lives could be changed by embracing this simple mantra?

Let your life be one of them.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

Studies have been done lately that show habits are contagious.

Have a group of friends that are overweight and you gain a little.

Have a group of friends that are losing weight and you lose some too.

The glaring example of this lately has been our kids.

After I noticed some little kid socks on the floor the other day, I came to a realization. Little kids probably aren’t born with a "leave your socks on the ground" gene and that maybe they had picked up this bad habit from me.

After a little reflection, my feelings of disappointment in myself gave way to a glimmer of optimism.

If bad habits are contagious, I bet good ones are too.

I bet if I could show the kids some good habits, they just might catch one or two of those.

I wonder if I could just create one good habit what kind of ripple effect that might have.

My kids, my wife, Mavidea, strangers….one little good habit might do some real good in this world.

As you look at your life and your habits, it might be helpful to look at them from the lens of "would I want someone else to catch this habit from me?"

Keep it simple to start, just do more of the good contagious stuff and less of the bad contagious stuff.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

Someone shared the story below with me yesterday and it was on my mind the rest of the day.

First, I thought of my wife and sent her a text of appreciation.

Then I thought of all of you who support me in so many ways.

Lastly, I thought of all the little opportunities in my day to do great work in service to others.

Enjoy the story, say thanks to those who "pack your parachute" and redouble your efforts to "pack the parachute" of others with excellence and care.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane as destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“ I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”

Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called

on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute. ​

When things aren’t adding up in your life, start subtracting.

Life is as much about what you say no to as it is what you say yes to.

They are two sides to the coin. Two parts to the math equation. Addition and subtraction.

We have been given the opportunity to continually add.

Add more stuff.

Add more to dos.

Add more friends on the FaceBox.

Add more square feet to our house.

At some point though things stop adding up.

We stop being happy with that new gadget.

We stop being satisfied with so many "likes" on our hilarious FaceBox post.

We start being irritated by the amount of stuff in all those square feet.

Simplify. Subtract until things start to add up. Remove clutter until you gain clarity.

Make it a point to get rid of something today.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

As a guy was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures where being held by only a single rope tied to their leg. It was obvious the elephants could break the rope and walk away, but for some reason they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these magnificently strong animals just stood there and made no attempt to break way.

“Well”, the trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use a similar size rope to tie them. At that age it is enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to think they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The guy was amazed. The elephants could break free at any time, but because they thought they could not, they did not try to break the rope. They were stuck right there! This powerful, gigantic creature has limited it’s present abilities by it’s limitations of the past.

Not having trained or owned elephants before, I can’t verify whether or not this story is true, but the truth of the metaphor remains.

We all have limits we have placed on ourselves.

Some were placed on us by those thinking they would protect us.

Some were placed on us by those who didn’t want us to grow beyond them.

Some were placed on us by well or ill intentioned strangers.

The real lesson of the story is not that limits were placed on us at some point, but that we have accepted them and chosen to live within.

We have not questioned things that just aren’t true.

My challenge to you today is this:

Where are you accepting limits that just aren’t there?

Is there an area of your life where you need to break free of assumed limits?

Take some kind of action today to prove to yourself that limit doesn’t exist.

Make it a great day.

Jake