I wanted to send a song that would make Mrs. Davis smile this morning and for some reason this one popped into my head.
Today is our 11th anniversary.
This wedding scene reminds me of our wedding 11 years and why anniversaries are so great.
Having a reminder to pause for a minute and think back and be thankful for all the good in our lives is so important.
Take a minute today to think of anniversary in your life.
Make it a great day.
Jake
For some reason, the ant and the grasshopper story has crept up in a few recent conversations.
Because of that I thought I would share it with everyone today.
No particularly deep or meaningful thoughts in relation to the story, just a question.
Is there an area or time in your life/schedule right now where you are playing too much instead of working the way you should.
Make it a great day.
Jake
In a field one summer’s day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they struggled to carry plump kernels of corn.
"Where are you going with those heavy things?" asked the grasshopper.
Without stopping, the first ant replied, "To our ant hill. This is the third kernel I’ve delivered today."
"Why not come and sing with me," teased the grasshopper, "instead of working so hard?"
"We are helping to store food for the winter," said the ant, "and think you should do the same."
"Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play," sang the grasshopper.
But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work.
The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger.
He staggered to the ants’ hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the summer. He begged them for something to eat.
"What!" cried the ants in surprise, "haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"
"I didn’t have time to store any food," complained the grasshopper; "I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone."
The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work.
Don’t forget — there is a time for work and a time for play!
Memorial – intended to commemorate someone or something.
Yesterday was Memorial Day. A day set aside to commemorate those that have lost their life in service to our country.
A seemingly consistent theme from those in the service is one of "doing their part". Being a part of protecting this great land and the cause of freedom world wide is something that they are inspired to do.
Maybe this next part is easier to say because I never served in the Armed Forces, but now we must do our part.
As we think of ways to commemorate those that have lost their life, the best way is to lives ours to the fullest.
Do you think they died with the hopes that we would spend our lives watching TV and complaining about our lot in life?
I don’t think that is what most of them had in mind.
Some of things I imagine those brave heroes thinking about as they faced mortal danger.
Their best girl back home. The love of their life. They probably pictured a life together filled with love, smiles and happiness. Take a minute to look at your spouse today as if through the eyes of a young soldier. Appreciate them the same way he would if given the chance.
The opportunity for meaningful work. I imagine them sitting around at night dreaming up enterprising schemes and plans to rule the business world. Take a fresh view of your job today. Think about as if you have just started after returning home from war.
To love others as ourselves. I imagine them struggling with all the senseless violence, meanness and coldness displayed in regards to human life. I imagine many of them making a vow to help others the minute they are given the chance. Today, smile at a stranger as if you had just seen the depths of humanity and were determined to balance that ledger through your own helpfulness and service to others.
These are just a few things that popped into my head to think about as ways to honor those that have gone before us.
Anything come to mind for you?
Make it a great day.
Jake
As in the past, I also feel compelled to share my two favorite pieces from Abraham Lincoln in honor of our Veterans.
Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Letter to Mrs. Bixby
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
Jesus gave us a commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Love is also a choice.
Everyday we can choose to look at others in our life with love.
Today you can make that choice.
Make it a great day.
Jake
I recently received the email below and thought it was worth sharing with everyone as the daily attitude email.
Make it a great day.
Jake
A young person I know was explaining to me the changes that he wanted to make in his life. At one point in the conversation he got excited and said, "I am going to make a 360 degree change in my life." I appreciated the sentiment, and I struggled not to laugh. I didn’t want to interrupt his excitement to point out that turning 360 degrees would point him right back in the direction he was already heading.
You might be laughing to yourself, believing that what this young person meant to say was, "I am going make a 180 degree change in my life." But that’s not correct either. Turning 180 degrees means that you completely change directions. If you were heading north, changing 180 degrees means you are heading south. That kind of serious correction may be necessary from time to time. But most of the time the corrections you need to make are something less than that.
Let’s use the metaphor "179 degrees" to describe these changes. It’s less than 180 degrees. Reaching your goals in business, in sales, and life requires that you trim you sails and make adjustments. But it’s likely you are not off course by so much that you have to change directions completely. Changing that much is what causes people to go from failed effort to failed effort, always seeking the magic bullet answer.
Here’s a personal example. Last year I lost 25 pounds. For years I had a healthy smoothie for breakfast (one cup of frozen mixed berries, one cup of frozen spinach, two scoops of carb-free Iso-Pure protein powder, aloe vera, ground flax seed, and water in a blender). I almost always had a salad with chicken for lunch. But it was dinners and snacking with my three kids on the weekends that kept the weight on. To lose the weight, I stopped eating bad carbs for dinner and snacking with the kids and the pounds fell off. I didn’t exercise once during the time I lost the weight. I wasn’t that far off, and I changed something far less than 180 degrees.
Whether your goals are around your physical health, your financial health, your results in business, or your results in sales, reaching those goals requires that you make changes. You arrived at your present state by holding certain beliefs and taking certain actions as a result of those beliefs. To reach your desired future state you need new beliefs and new actions. But everything you believe and everything you’re doing isn’t wrong. You might not be that far off.
Have you ever tried to make 180 degree turn only to find out that it was too much change and that it was impossibly difficult to sustain? It might not have even been necessary.
Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef has made his career by studying how get massive changes with a little effort as possible. He searches for the "minimum effective dosage," the least amount of work that you can do to produce outstanding results. He looks for "effectiveness" instead of changes that require massive effort.
Think of some area of your life where you want better results. What are the 179-degree (less than 180) changes that you can make to produce those results?
When something isn’t working, we often want to scrap the whole idea, believing that the idea was bad or that we failed. But that isn’t always true. Sometimes you’re mostly right, but you need to trim the sails to produce the results you’re after. Think of some project that you’ve abandoned (or that you are about to abandon). What are the 179-degree changes you might make to produce better results instead of abandoning your project?
What are the one or two little actions you can take (or stop taking) that would change your results and correct your course?
Make this week rock and I’ll see you back here next week.
Anthony Iannarino
"The most influential persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is your integrity." -Zig Ziglar
As I thought about this quote it made me think back on some important moments of persuasion in my life.
Most of them involved long term relationships where I had proved personal integrity and was allowed to influence and/or lead someone else because of this.
I have heard it called a “trust bank” or an “emotional bank account”. Whatever you call it, personal integrity and trustworthiness is the foundation for long standing relationships.
And long standing relationships are the ones that bear the most fruit.
Is there a relationship in your life that could use a little more personal integrity?
A boss/employer you are not doing your best for?
A spouse who doesn’t know that “one little secret”?
A friend who didn’t get a straight answer to his/her invitation to a birthday party?
As with a lot of others areas in life, I believe that when it comes to integrity, little things do matter. A lot.
Maybe take a minute today to draw a new line in the sand when it comes to integrity.
Make it a great day.
Jake
A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job. – Zig Ziglar
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.- Sam Ewing
One of my favorite scenes from Bruce Almighty is when God and Bruce mop the floor together.
Bruce has finally gotten to the end of his rope and goes seeking help, and God gives him a mop and then they mop the floor together. The sheer simplicity of doing some hard, good work together produces clarity of thought and purpose for Bruce.
There is something almost cathartic about doing some plain old fashioned hard work.
Hard work is also one of the keys to creating and transferring value to others (which in turn determines our rewards). Applying hard work to solving the problems of others can be our unique way of delivering value.
Is there something in your life that just needs some good old fashioned hard work?
When can you start?
Make it a great day.
Jake
Yesterday was Oliver’s baptism.
Baptism are always such happy moments for me, they always remind me of new beginnings.
As you look at your day, your week, your year ahead, are you excited for some new beginnings?
Is there something you would like to get started on but haven’t yet?
Do it. Start now.
Make it a time of new beginnings in your life. Celebrate the opportunities and possibilities and then get started.
Make it a great day.
Jake
JM – I am and always will be, your friend. – Spock
JW – Bones, get that thing off my face. – James T. Kirk
EB – Yes, you can….you can do anything that you want to do, as long as you make up your mind….you can do it. – Dick Hoyt
JD – You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
–Plato
Make it a great weekend.
Jake
Funny thing about getting respect. You have to be respectable.
So often we expect respect, honor and trust without first becoming respectable, honorable and trustworthy.
Part of getting the results you want in life is becoming the kind of person who gets those results.
And respect is a great example.
Make it a great day.
Jake
Practical Steps for Friendship, Unity and Intimacy in Your Marriage
The Daily Attitude Email 