Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. – Melody Beattie

The idea of gratitude turning a house into a home and a meal into a feast really stand out.

We have the choice.

We can look at what we have as not enough. Not as much as our neighbors or friends.

We can see our circumstances as having not gone our way. Bemoaning the fact that others have had it easier.

Or…

We can look at all that we have been blessed with and see it as a bounty.

We can see our circumstances and think of those who haven’t had it so good.

There is always something to be thankful. Gratitude can always transform for the better.

Make it a great day.

Jake

https://youtu.be/Z8SPwT3nQZ8

A good sign that you’ve got the gratitude of Thanksgiving in your heart – you smile. A lot.

I’m going to try it today.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“I once had the opportunity to discuss this with the brilliant George Mason University professor of economics, Walter Williams. His definition of money remained with me and became part of my business seminars. “Take out a dollar bill and look at it,” he said. “Now pat yourself on your back because you are looking at a certificate of performance. If you did not rob or steal from anyone to obtain that dollar, if you neither defrauded anyone nor persuaded your government to seize it from a fellow citizen and give it to you, then you could only have obtained that dollar in one other way—you must have pleased someone else.” How true are those words. Whether you pleased a client, a customer, or your boss, that money is testament to your having pleased another human being. Having money is not shameful; it is a certificate of good performance granted to you by your grateful fellow citizens.”

Excerpt From: Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “Thou Shall Prosper.”

This is probably the most positive view of money and income that I have come across.

What if we all looked at the dollars we earned as little certificates of performance?

What if we looked at the world through the lens of looking to serve others?

Each day we have the opportunity to look for the positive.

Make it a great day.

Jake

I’ve been listening to Jordan Peterson’s new book and it reminded me of this email from last year.

“To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).”

― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

I’ve been reading this book again after listening to it last year.

It really is a tremendous book. Highly recommend.

A theme in the book is what I would call “being a grown up”.

This quote from the book puts it well.

Open your eyes and face reality.

Accept your responsibility to participate in it and make things better.

Understand your vulnerabilities and move forward anyway.

Gladly take on the sacrifices necessary to improve the lives around you.

These ideas seem particularly important in a time of difficulty like we are facing now.

Now is the time to stand up straight with our shoulders back, not to shrink or shirk our responsibilities.

Make it a great day.

Jake

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

I saw a quote the other day that essentially said the key to happiness is to limit the number of desires.

Sometimes (most of the time?) the end of the year is a time where we overcomplicate our lives with too many desires. We try to do, buy and have too much.

Maybe a library and a garden aren’t your things.

What would be on the “short list” for you?

Make your list shorter this holiday season.

Make it a great day.

Jake

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child. – Dr. Seuss

It is a great experience to read a book to a child. It almost makes it worth having them (begin knee slapping and laughing).

Instead of asking you all to sit down and read a book to a kid near you, I thought I would encourage you to read in general.

We all need to exercise our minds.

We need to change gears and a change of pace.

We need to see another view on what life is like or could be.

We need that special insight that a great author can provide.

When we experience this different perspective, we become a better version of ourselves.

Make it a great day.

Jake

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. – Ernest Hemingway

Am I getting better or getting worse?

Was today an improvement or a setback?

Improvement or decline?

Imagine the power of asking yourself these questions versus comparing yourself to your neighbors.

I especially like the simplicity of this.

We can make things overly complicated when we seek out what others have, when we seek to live the lives of others.

Instead, pursuing our better self each and every day brings with it clarity and simplicity.

Let’s all get better today.

Make it a great day.

Jake

https://youtu.be/DWrMeBR8W-c

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from Band of Brothers (a book I’m reminded of every year on Veterans Day as it reminds of what it means to be a Veteran).

From Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose –

Sgt. Skinny Sisk also had a hard time shaking his war memories. In July 1991, he wrote Winters to explain. "My career after the war was trying to drink away the truckload of Krauts that I had stopped in Holland and the die-hard Nazi that I went up into the Bavarian Alps and killed. Old Moe Alley made a statement that all the killings that I did was going to jump into the bed with me one of these days and they surely did. I had a lot of flash backs after the war and started drinking. Ha! Ha!

Then my sister’s little daughter, four-years old, came into my bedroom (I was too unbearable to the rest of the family, either hung over or drunk) and she told me that Jesus loved me and she loved me and if I would repent God would forgive me for all the men I kept trying to kill all over again.

That little girl got to me. I put her out of my room, told her to go to her mommy. There and then I bowed my head on my mother’s old feather bed and repented and God forgave me for the war and all the other bad things I had done down through the years. I was ordained in the latter part of 1949 into the ministry and believe me, Dick, I haven’t whipped but one man since and he needed it. I have four children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The Lord willing and Jesus tarrys and I hope to see you all at the next reunion. If not I’ll see you on the last jump. I know you won’t freeze in the door.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Veterans Day is today.

The last line of the “Band of Brothers” HBO series has always stuck with me.

They ended with interviews with the actual veterans.

The last one told the story of his grandson asking if he had been a hero in the war.

“No, but I served with some.”

Wow. It takes a lot of character to conduct yourself like that.

We should all be proud of the legacy left by the great men and women in our armed forces and those who are currently serving.

Thank a veteran today.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. – Andy Stanley

The last couple of days, Annie has been watching “The Blind Side”.

It’s a story of an affluent family that takes in a young man without a home. The young man goes on to play professional football.

It reminded me of the Andy Stanley quote above. The family in that story did just that.

The future of that young man was forever changed because of the love of that family.

How could you reach out and help just one person today?

Make it a great day.

Jake