JM – What about the dudes?
JD – Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. – Jim Rohn
JW – Everybody should have a porch swing.
EB – Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. – Confucius
The quote from Erik above is a good reminder for all of us.
When you get up in the morning, are you excited about tackling another day?
Or are you filled with dread?
Finding something you love to do isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.
Make it a great day.
Jake
Another summer time anthem.
This one reminds me of the fact that we are the same but different.
We all love summertime. But we all don’t love country music.
I am not a country music fan, but my wife is. She loves this song. Me, not so much.
And yet, despite (or maybe because of) these differences we are perfect for each other.
In life we will constantly be meeting people that are different than us. We can choose to embrace it and find the best in each other or we can judge and condemn.
Make it a great day.
Jake
There is so much to be learned in life through experience.
Both the positive and negative experiences of ourselves and others.
Jim Rohn uses the following illustration:
Imagine you are driving down the road and you see a man. He is all bruised and bloodied and his clothes are torn to shreds. He waves you down and you pull over to talk to him and he says “The bridge is out, turn around!”
Do you ignore the man and keep driving?
Of course not!
But we keep on driving all the time in our lives.
We see others struggle with money and then handle ours the same way.
We see others struggle with their weight and we eat the same food and follow the same workout plan as they do.
We see relationships torn asunder and follow in those same patterns.
I’m not saying it’s easy to not follow the poor examples in our lives. For some, there are some deeply ingrained bad habits that will take a lot of work to change directions.
But I am saying it’s worth it. You don’t want to end up the bloodied and beat up guy telling everyone else the bridge is out.
Make it a great day.
Jake
I found the story below and loved two of the key thoughts.
First, that things can and will change.
Second, the power of writing and hope.
Make it a great day.
Jake
Things Change
Alex W. Miller
For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation day… was not.
I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, when my lease ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.
The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew my small university town couldn’t offer me any opportunities, I packed up my car and drove to Southern California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.
You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can’t control – that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life.
Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.
So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer – a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough… sometimes a little hope is all you need!
I channeled my frustration into a children’s book. Beyond the River was the story of an unlikely hero featuring a little fish who simply refused to give up on his dream.
And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just a lot of hard work and perseverance – I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.
The moral of this story is… don’t give up. Even if things look bleak now, don’t give up. Two years ago I was huddled in my car drinking cold soup right out of the can. Things change.
If you work hard, give it time, and don’t give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream… all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.
Alex is the author of a new children’s story called Beyond The River about a little fish who is looking for answers.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Continuing the theme of movies, I thought of the saying above.
Perhaps a part of our fascination with movies is what they tell us about our own lives. When we see the characters struggle and triumph it gives us a glimpse into ourselves.
We see our potential and our failings, our weakness and our strength.
We are faced with the best and worst of ourselves.
In this way, we can learn and grow though the stories we see unfold on screen.
In this opportunity for growth we see the true beauty inherent in all good art forms, that challenge to our current way of thinking. The challenge of accepting our current reality or embracing a new one.
When faced with this new reality we can shrink from it or grow and change to meet it.
As you think of your favorite movies and characters, think of your own opportunities for growth.
Think of art is imitating your own reality, and what needs to be dene.
And then do it. Seize the day.
Make it a great day.
Jake
Rannulph Junuh: You really love this game, don’t you?
Hardy Greaves: It’s the greatest game there is.
Rannulph Junuh: You really think so?
Hardy Greaves: Ask anybody. It’s fun. It’s hard and you stand out there on that green, green grass, and it’s just you and the ball and there ain’t nobody to beat up on but yourself; just like Mister Newnan keeps hittin’ himself with the golf club every time he gets angry. He’s broken his toe three times on account of it. It’s the only game I know that you can call a penalty on yourself, if you’re honest, which most people are. There just ain’t no other game like it.
This back and forth from “The Legend of Bagger Vance” is one of my favorites.
Yesterday I got to watch most of the last round of the British Open. It always serves as a reminder of the great things about golf.
The Open is a great reminder that golf is a game with a long history. And that in order to be successful today, you will be well served if you understand the past.
It is also a reminder of the shear beauty of golf courses, each a unique expression of the greatness of nature.
Big golf tournaments are also a reminder of the inherent difficulties of golf. The best players in the world are challenged with the most difficult of circumstances and the champion is the person who deals with adversity the best.
What strikes me the most usually during the British Open is the seeming fickleness of it. The courses in Scotland are notorious for random bounces and unpredictability.
Like life, you aren’t guaranteed a fair shake. It is about making the most of whatever bounce you do get.
I know that golf isn’t for everybody, but the lessons learned from it can be.
Make it a great day.
Jake
JD – If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, then nothing else matters.– Former Sen. Alan Simpson
JM – What….is the air speed velocity of an un-laden swalllow? – The BridgeKeeper
EB – To the extreme, I rock a mic like a vandal. – Vanilla Ice
JW – The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once. – E Joseph Cossman
I really liked the above quote on integrity.
Simple, but profound.
Integrity stems from integer which is in essence a way of calling something whole or complete.
Without integrity, we are not whole. It is an all or nothing proposition. It is either whole or broken.
It’s tempting to pretend like gray areas exist or that we had a good excuse when our integrity is broken. But none of that matters, it is or it isn’t whole.
Admittedly, maintaining integrity is difficult and not something that many of us (if any) are able to do in all situations and in circumstances.
But those are the best character traits to strive for. Just because it is difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be actively working every day to move closer to that standard.
Make it a great weekend.
Jake
This week’s warm weather was a great reminder that summer is upon us.
Probably showing my age a little, but this song reminds me of high school summers. Driving around with friends with no place to go.
It’s a great reminder to me to find more time for friendships.
Make the most of the time you get with your friends.
Make it a great day.
Jake
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. -The Princess Diaries
One of my favorite things about movies is that they can use fiction and fantasy to show us what something like courage looks like.
Courage is a lot easier to notice when a noble knight is battling a dragon.
But the quote above reminded me of the courage that happens everyday that we don’t even notice.
We don’t notice that the waitress at dinner is a single mom picking up a second shift to make ends meet.
We don’t notice the stranger in the grocery store who lost 75 pounds and changed his life forever.
Courage is all around us. Each and every one of us must face up to our fears, and decide that something else, is more important.
Make it a courageous day.
Jake
I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too. ~ Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) in "Hugo" (2011).
After the quote from Secretariat, I thought I would find another good movie quote. I didn’t realize just how many there are.
This one really spoke to me. It reminded of one of the most positive and inspiring thoughts we can think: each of us was uniquely and wonderfully made for a specific purpose.
Regardless of how things have gone for you So far, this truth should keep you moving forward.
Viktor Frankl used this belief to turn his fine in a Nazi Concentration camp into a positive experience and a lifetime of follow up work and books.
Having a purpose can be such a positive and driving force in our lives.
Spend a few moments today contemplating what that purpose maybe for you.
Make it a great day.
Jake
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