Last. Day. Of School.

Hard to believe that my little Maggie is already finished her first year of school.

Seems like just yesterday (I think I am going to be saying that a lot over the years) she was headed off for that first day, a little nervous and a lot excited.

Now she moves onward and upward. Before you know it, finishing another year will be old hat.

It reminds me of the seasons of life as described by this song:

http://youtu.be/fg73MRomwSA

What a great metaphor for life. Jim Rohn talks about the seasons of life and what role we play during the various seasons of life.

As I think back to my childhood and summers from when I was a kid I think of exploring, curiousity, learning how to make my own fun, and many other great memories.

Today I wish for the same for Maggie, but I also wish for each of us to find a little bit of that in ourselves again this summer.

Go swimming.

Go fishing.

Play baseball.

Spend time just sitting outside shooting the breeze with friends.

Go to a baseball game.

Life is short. We have so few summers. Take advantage of them.

Jake

How can I help?

I heard someone say this the other day and realized just how great a way to look at life it is.

It combines two important aspects of finding happiness and success.

First, when you say this you are taking personal responsibility. Taking ownership of what happens is a cornerstone of becoming happier.

Second, by saying this you are offering to be of service. Serving others leads us down the path towards success.

Instead of shooting down other’s ideas or second guessing their decisions, let’s make an effort to ask this simple question.

How can I help you have a great week this week?

Jake

Someone recently told me that the eleventh commandment is “Thou shalt not sweat the small stuff.”

And to add to that “it’s all small stuff”.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” where he tells of his experiences in a concentration camp during World War II.

He tells stories that prove just how true this “commandment” is.

He tells how the prisoners were stripped of everything. All their possessions, their clothes, their jobs, their jewelry and even their name. He then goes on to tell how even in those dire circumstances he and others found happiness (even if only for very brief moments).

He learned just how unimportant all the “small stuff” of life really was. How little he really needed in order to be happy. And how his (and others) previous worries now seemed so inconsequential.

Fortunately for us, we don’t have to go through life in a concentration camp to learn this important lesson. People like Viktor have written down their stories and the lessons learned in books available for all of us to read.

Hopefully we can take these stories and inspire ourselves to do a little better, worry a little less, and be a little nicer to those around us.

Make it a great day.

Jake

PS – Another blatant sales pitch. “Man’s Search for Meaning” is an excellent book and I would highly recommend it. End of blatant sales pitch. I am in no way compensated for my overt advertising for this book, etc. etc.

I found the story below and thought it summarized some very important points very well.

You can choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood.

You can choose to be a victim or you can choose to learn from it.

You can choose to accept other’s complaining or you can point out the positive side of life.

Or you can follow Meaghan’s suggested quote from Barney from How I Met Your Mother. “When I am sad, I just stop being sad and be awesome instead.”

Make it a great day.

Jake

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply… I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Let this really sink in-

then choose how you start your day tomorrow.

"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." – Robert Heinlein

Reading this quote reminded me of something I struggle with every day. By not clearly defining what I should be working on during a given day, I get bogged down in “checking” things.

Checking email.

Checking voice mail.

Responding to whatever pops up in front of me.

By not clearly defining my goals I end up performing daily trivia instead of working towards something more meaningful.

Do you struggle with this as well?

Let’s all make a better effort today to focus on the important. To setting some goals and getting them accomplished.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Below is an excerpt from a book titled “Life Begins When You Do.”

What a great way of looking at things.

And what a great way to start a Monday. Your week begins when you do.

Make it a great week.

Jake

An excerpt from

Life Begins When You Do

by Mary Anne Radmacher

Nearly everyone postpones one grand thing or a collection of mighty hopes and dreams.

Between the quote marks of our lives are phrases like these: "When things slow down…when I finish my degree…when I get certified…as I acquire a deeper knowledge base…when I have kids…when the kids are grown…when I get well…when I marry…when I divorce…when I retire…when I get that promotion, that raise, that job, that house, that whatever the fill-in-the blank is for your specific postponing of life…"

Your Life Begins When You Do.

You may think you are postponing the longing of your soul until life aligns itself with your vision, until elements conspire to be more favorable…but as it happens, life just lolls along at the same remarkable consistent and disinterested cadence. Life is impartial. YOUR personal, subjective life (dreams, satisfactions, contentment, achievements, vision, fullness, passion, aspirations) begins when you begin.

From my teens into adulthood, I said, "I want to be an artist." One day I changed the sentence to, "I am an artist." My view changed. Life began. I looked behind me and saw that I had been accidentally living as an artist. I had been laying down a path that was only now visible to eyes that had begun to see. Beginning my life as an artist made my heart’s longing and the small, tentative labors of my hands – visible and tangible. I began by opening the door and simply believing that I could live my dream. I began living that dream by seeing that I could.

Your purpose, that thing that among the many to-dos of your days, is what you must do. Embrace the truth of your purpose each minute of your precious life…for how very true it is that life begins when you do.

If you would dream it

BEGIN it.

If you have an idea

OPEN it.

If there is longing

ACKNOWLEDGE it.

If there is mission

COMMIT it.

If there is daring

DO it.

If there is love

SPEAK it.

If there is resource

USE it.

If there is abundance

SHARE it.