Always Believe In Yourself

Sometimes the words scatter from your mind, like leaves being tossed by the wind.  You reach out to catch them, and they skitter away, as though playing tag with you.  The words are carved into the leaves, like pain and joy, just as they are forever etched into your soul.

The leaves fall from the tree without regret.  You release them, and then quickly reach out to try to gather them back to your heart.  Even though they leave scars, they are familiar and portray themselves as your bosom friends.

Yet as time passes, you realize that you have to let the dead things go.  As the leaves fall to the earth, they cover up the path you have been walking.  They don’t want you to leave them behind.

Don’t let anything or anyone define you.  You are what you are, because of what you make of tough situations in your life – Demi Lovato

It is time to raise your eyes up to the sky.  To see that although you may have lost the path, the limbs of the trees are now bare, and you can see the hills beyond the trees.  You can see the stars up above, reminding you that life is enduring and goes on.  It is time to release the old way of life and embrace something new.  Clarity comes into our lives when we release the old.

The seeds of successful change and transformation are planted when we release the failures.  Things fall apart, so that new things can come together.

Some days breakfast should start with dessert.  When I am thinking deep thoughts about what is hanging in the balance of my life, it helps to turn things upside down.  How do you know when it is time to let go of something?  That it is truly dead?  That you aren’t giving up just at the point of when it was finally going to work and come together perfectly?

Is the greatest strength in the hanging on or the letting go?  Separation needs to happen, in order for you to come to the best decision possible.  You need to get quiet.  To go deep within.  To step outside of the expectation, the desire, the frustration, divorced from all emotions clouding your judgment.  To become still, motionless – to step into the pause between the inhale and the exhale.

Stay true to what makes you different.  As long as you’re unique, you’re irreplaceable – Olivia Wilde

• When you reach that still perfect moment, what does your heart whisper?
• What direction is your soul being called?

Return to the root of your soul.

• Build the chrysalis and go through another transformation?
• What seeds have fallen there to take root?
• What new life is sprouting?
• What new adventure is waiting there for you to discover?

Listen to the silence, and let it touch your imagination.

Watch as the wind catches your imagination and lifts off.  The leaves blow, dancing to the silent music that only they can hear.  Lifting off they uncover a new path.  You step softly onto it.  And slowly lifting your wings, you start whirling and twirling in the midnight air.

The leaves spin all around you, and you find the freedom to let them drift where they may.  No longer feeling that you have lost anything.  Realizing that it is in the separation that we become free to shed the old and transform into the new.

It isn’t saying goodbye to the old you with regret.  It is the joyous heart of welcoming the butterfly as she emerges from the chrysalis and stretches out her wings to take flight.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our sense to grow sharper – W.B. Yeats

Entelechy is an interesting word.  It is according to Wikipedia: the inner strength directing life and growth to become all one is capable of being.  Just as the acorn is the entelechy of the Oak tree, a caterpillar is the entelechy of a butterfly.

We go through transformation to release all the things that we have acquired through life that don’t really belong to us.  They aren’t part of the essence of who we really are.  So, transformation isn’t so much about changing who we are, as it is about releasing who we are not and accepting who we are.

Pay attention to what centers you, calms you, makes you feel grounded and rooted in your life.  When you go for a walk in the woods, what are you naturally drawn to?  A river or brook or even a fountain?  A meadow, an old oak tree?

The beach with the smell of the salt in the air, the wind blowing your hair, and the sounds of the surf rushing to the shore and pulling back into the ocean?  Whatever it is that says, “this is home”?  Bring more of that into your life.

Make an appointment in your calendar to take time to connect to that feeling.  It brings you back to your roots.  It is your true north.  The magnetic path that your feet want to walk.  If you can’t believe in the magic of this connection, you will never find it.

Never stop believing in yourself.  Remember that those who have succeeded will encourage you.  And those that have failed will not – Olianna Portnoy

Life’s Adventures Unlock The Mystery of Who You Are, Start Now

“If happiness is the goal, and it should be, then adventures should be a priority” – Richard Branson

Why should adventures be a priority?  Because it is the best way to learn about yourself and the world.  You learn about what you are afraid of, what challenges you.  What deep seated beliefs you have that you might not be aware of.  It is in fact the best way to experience “LIFE”.  You go somewhere you have never been.

It could be a walk in the woods around where you live.  A hike in the mountains.  A walk along the sea shore, listening to the sea birds call out over the sounds of the waves crashing against the sandy beach.  It could be your first time in an airplane or a cruise ship.  Sitting in a train, you watch the majesty of nature roll by as you cross the rocky mountains, and someplace deep inside you feel the shift.

Somewhere along the line, something will happen out of the ordinary.  You will start out on a certain kind of journey, and along the way the mystery of why you chose that path will reveal itself to you.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”  – Winnie The Pooh

What is so interesting about travel and adventure is the attitude you bring to it.  You can magnify every discomfort into an ordeal, or you can get curious about what is happening around you.  You can experience it all as an adventure.  You get out of the ruts in your life.  Adventures are the best way to let some stories happen to you.  Discover new trails you didn’t know existed.  Adventures answer questions you didn’t know you had, because with adventures you gain first hand knowledge and experience.

“The books we read answer questions we didn’t even know existed”  – Axel Marazzi

There might be switch backs along the trail and you decide to walk off the trail, and cut through straight up the mountainside.  You come to forks in the trail with no signs, so you have to choose to go this way or that way.  Sometimes the trees are so thick you can’t see the sun.

• It is in the getting lost, that you become aware of what is important.  What are you willing to do to get it?
• It is in the replacing of fear with curiosity that you truly see what your options are.
• It is in seeing the endless stream of possibilities are always there for you to see, but you get so single mindedly focused that you miss every door of opportunity.

“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams”  – Oprah

Are you a planner?  I like to get into the details and have things laid out.  It took a lot of practice for me to start leaving space in my plans to just be adventurous.  My husband loves to just get in the car and take a drive.  No real destination, just drive down a road we have never taken, with no idea where it would take us.  Everyone needs someone like my husband, who grabs your arm and says lets go have an adventure.

“Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your live was meant to be”  – Steve Pavlina

Not planning gives me anxiety.  It feels unstable.  But slowly through years of practice, I allow for spontaneity in my life.  Is it easy for you to follow maps to the edges, and then step off the edge?  You know that the world isn’t flat.  You know there are no monsters of the deep to drag your boat down to the bottom of the ocean.

• Do you go to sleep with stars that you don’t recognize?
• How often do you order something you have never eaten before?
• Do you have the conviction, that whatever you are looking for in life, it is out there waiting for you to find it?

There is no end to what you can discover about yourself when you adventure out with your eyes wide open.  Let the journey unfold itself before you.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us”  – Charles Bukowski

A lifetime of adventures

One of my favorite movies is with Diane Lane, in “Under The Tuscan Sun”.  After a bad a breakup, she is gifted with a vacation in Italy by her best friend.  While on the tour bus, they pass by this house and all of a sudden she makes them stop and let her off.  And that is when her adventure really begins.  She ends up buying the house, restoring it, and meets all of these new people.  She has this idea of what she wants in her life to make her happy – her dream life.  At the end of the movie she has everything she wanted, but it all came to her in a totally different way than she planned.

When you try to make life conform to a plan, you miss the mystery and magic of what it is really supposed to be.  The best gift you can give yourself is a lifetime of adventures.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius

There is a wonderful book by Jack Canfield called “The Golden Motorcycle Club” and in it he writes that we travel in soul groups.  I can just see the ad for my soul group.

“Limitless soul seeking like minded limitless souls, to journey down to earth for a great adventure.  You will be leaving a good life here, to go for a greater experience of life there.  For in going out into the world of the physical body, you will succeed in discovering that you are far more than you ever dreamed of.  You will find that stories are not just something that you can read about.  Stories are what happens to you and for you when you live a life of adventure.  You will discover if you are, “the girl made up of adventure and wine and all things fine”, or “the girl made up of adventure, fine beer, brains and no fear”.

And so . . . the ADVENTURE BEGINS.  Let’s go do something remarkable.

Say Yes, Choose To Make A Difference, The Butterfly Effect

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

  – R. Buckminster Fuller

I think that most of us have heard the concept of the butterfly effect.  That the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world, can cause a typhoon in another part of the world.  The concept of how making a single change in your life, effects the future of people all over the world.  Every time we make a change in our lives, it shifts who we are.  We in effect destroy the old personality, in creating a new personality.  The caterpillar creates a change by forming the chrysalis around its body.  Then the old body is completely destroyed.  A completely new body is created.  This kind of change is not temporary.  There is no going back to who you were.  Even small changes create revolutionary impacts in a persons life.  Science recognizes this as “The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions”, I like “The Butterfly Effect” much better.  LOL.

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet become something beautiful.

 – unknown

I had this experience of seeing how a very simple comment, completely changed my own life.  I was at a seminar and the speaker had asked a question of the audience.  I had raised my hand.  He looked at me.  His face had that expression you get when you think you know someone, but you aren’t sure who they are.  He asked me if I had attended any of his other events, and I said yes.  This was actually my third weekend course with his group. 

One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die.

  – Beau Taplin

The next words out of his mouth shifted my whole life into a new space of awareness.  He dramatically raised his arm and made the motion of removing a cape.  He said “You are one of those people.  I am removing your cloak of invisibility.”  With those couple of sentences, I was forever changed.  I could feel a heavy weight had been lifted off of me.  It was like a darkness was removed.  I felt like I was standing in the spot light.  I felt every person in the room see me for the first time. 

Each small act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time – affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo.

  – Dean Koontz

I had been one of those people who could disappear into a crowd.  Now I can’t do it.  It is no longer natural.  It now feels uncomfortable.  I thank Jesse Koran for listening to that intuitive voice inside of himself, and saying what I needed to hear.  It was definitely time for me to transform.  My purpose in this world was calling to me.  This was just the first of many transformations my life purpose would require of me.

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth.  The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water.  Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts.  And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them is far reaching.

  – Swani Sivananda

What Jesse said was like a tiny grain of sand, a drop of water in the ocean, but that single action led to the creating of LemonadeMakers.  It lead to creating this blog.  It lead to my first book being written, and this summer it will be published.  It has led to a personal freedom in my life, because I finally said yes to me. I finally acknowledged that maybe I did have a gift with writing.  Now I wondered if maybe you would want to hear what I have learned through all of the lessons in my life.  That maybe, just maybe, you would be encouraged to make a shift and change in your own life.  I woke up, and I discovered that part of my own purpose in life, would be to help others wake up.

My writing had been calling out to me since I was a child.  But I was afraid to listen.  Now slowly that wall I had built between my life purpose and the life I was living, began to crumble.  With each new curious thought, I was able to remove some of that wall.  Curiosity is a huge wall demolisher.  Because it circumvents fears from stopping you.  It leads you to joyously take a risk and see what happens.  It is a prime movement of the transformation process.

By your hand millions – BILLIONS – of lives will be altered, caught up in a chain of events begun by you this day.

  – Andy Andrews

The reason why the butterfly effect is so interesting, is that I shift and transform a tiny grain of sand.  You in turn see something as small as a single sentence in this post, that causes you to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Your transformation, in turn inspires another to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Soon we have a whole mountain towering 5,000 feet in the air.  And it was built, one tiny grain of sand at a time.  One personal transformation of a small thing in your life, in the next persons life, and so on.  Until 5,000,000,000 grains of sand build a mountain.

Each of us is like that butterfly, The Butterfly Effect.  And each tiny move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through out organizations, our families, and our communities.

  – Shawn Achor

At some point in our life, we start looking for our life purpose.  In looking at all of the butterfly’s around her in this photo, she finds the one that is perfect for her.  She finds her purpose in life.  While her yellow butterfly looks like many others, it is unique in its coloring.  It fits her perfectly.  She recognizes it as being hers and hers alone.  The question then becomes, what does she do with it?  Because taking up this butterfly will forever change her world.  She will grow and transform into something different and new.  She has the ability to change the world with her decision.  And the interesting thing is, that she will in fact change the world either by taking that butterfly, that purpose up or leaving it behind. 

Don’t quit before the miracle happens.

 – unknown

Every action and every non-action matters.  Every choice you make or don’t make matters.  Will you fully live your life, or just continue to exist?  Your time as a caterpillar has ended.  Will you take up your life purpose, your wings?  If you have said yes in the past, is it time to trade in the smaller wings for a large pair?  To expand your comfort zone?  To acknowledge and accept your bigger purpose in this world?

Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight.  Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.

  – Arthur C. Clarke

You might find something within this post that strikes you in a new way.  Nothing has been said here, that hasn’t been said elsewhere.  But as we grow into our life purpose, we see things differently because we are different.  So sometimes a sentence brings a new insight that we didn’t get before.  This information may or may not provide some new knowledge or understanding.  Knowledge applied becomes wisdom, so maybe something in this post served as a reminder to make a transformation.  It becomes wisdom when it transforms us in some small way.  That wisdom then provides foresight to the path that we are now walking down.  It provides a small grain of sand, to put onto our mountain top of transformation that we are building.  It tells us whether to take the right hand or the left hand of the path up ahead.

The very beating of your heart matters.  Every choice you make or choose not to make matters.  Your actions impact the world.  Choose them wisely.  Expand your comfort zone.  Seek out every opportunity to say yes to your life purpose.  Your actions will shape how your future unfolds.  Your story has been so far only one of many possibilities.  New choices, new actions, expansion, transformation – all sit in front of you at this moment.  Say yes to happiness, when your life purpose lands on your hand say yes to whatever will lead to expansion and growth.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

  – Charles Dickens

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Your Soul Is Your Greatest Teacher

 

“You have to grow from the inside out.  None can teach you; none can make you spiritual.  There is no other teacher but your own soul”  – Swami Vivekananda

Your soul comes with your purpose already planted within it.  Your gifts are inside, waiting to be discovered.  The divine will is waiting to be expressed through your life.

Unfortunately, you forget what you already knew as a small child.  You get lost.  This is where the divine teachings can assist you.

The universal laws point you in the right direction.  They lead you to re-discover what you have forgotten.

One of the Laws of the Universe.  But what does it really mean when you look at it through the lens of your life?

I love the vibrant health of this tree in our featured quote. It is not only fully supporting itself, it is also providing for the area around it. Everything is vibrant, growing and healthy.

You have the light of the truth being reflected in the lamps to light the darkness down in the root system.  They shine at night to show the way as you go seeking the truth among your deep roots. You have the butterfly of transformation.

You have the fruit of both the foliage around it and the tree itself. This fruit attracts you as you go seeking food for your soul. It is so beautiful, and it invites you to come and rest.

I was listening to a CD by Guy Finley and he talked about the importance of balance in how we show up in the world, comparing it to a tree. Picture the tree having a root system as you see above. This root system is as deep underground, as the trunk and branches of the tree that extend high above the ground. It is about balance of the structure of the tree. The balance of the trees roots below support the outward growth above.

He stated that if a tree that didn’t have strong deep roots (roots deep within), it would be in danger of toppling over. This was because the growth above ground wasn’t being fully supported. In turn, if all you did was work on the root system, then you would have stunted growth above, no fruits. There has to be a balance of inner and outer work, all happening at the same time.

We see this in the Ying/Yang symbols.  In giving, you are going up the outward growth of the tree and in receiving you are going down into the root system.  In breathing in, you are going to the root system, and in breathing out you are going up the growth of the tree.

“The constant in/out, give/receive plays out in so many systems in our lives”

I thought about this in my own life, and watching the lives of others that I see out in the world. We have all seen a number of people who achieved something great in their lives, who later implode through drugs, drinking or sexual escapades. Think of the Hollywood stars that have overdosed, the politicians and scandals that they have had. Even religious leaders have their fair share when they have built an empire that came crashing down on them.

These are all examples of a root system that couldn’t support the upward growth.

So what is the root system in our analogy?

It is the inner work that you  do on yourself. The roots remind you of where you have been, and who you are today. It takes work to get to know your shadows. To uncovering what I call the popsicle stories. The stories you created as a child, to explain something that you couldn’t understand at the time. It is the judgments, traumas and dramas you grew up with. It takes deep inner work to discover what they are, and how they play out in the patterns of your life.  You must go back and claim your past.  It is what helps you to understand your present.

“It is in the connecting the past to the present, that sets up what you can completely shift and change for a better future”

It is through the developing of your relationship with the divine, that you are able to align your souls purpose in being here now. It is about asking the right questions to yourself that you discover “your way home” to your true self and your purpose in being here.

It is exploring and questioning every truth you have acquired throughout your life.  Some of those earliest truths contradict to some of your latest truths.  Some of those older “truths” or stories need to be released.  They no longer serve or support your inward and outward growth.

You need to discover that, as in the Wizard of Oz, you already have what you are looking for outside of you.  It lives deep inside of you in the root system. You already know “the way to home”.

Home is the place of balance in this analogy. The bedrock of the foundation cornerstone. The place where the outward growth of “who you are in this world” is equal to, and growing in proportion to the inner growth of the root system of your tree.  It is the place of awakening.

You have filters in your mind, which serve as a protection.  These filters both serve you and sometimes hurt you.  This is because you miss seeing things that have always been there.

Have you ever driven down a road that you use all the time and see a store front for the first time?  Earlier this year a large commercial building was totally removed so they could build a new structure.  I drive by it 4 times a day, going back and forth to my office from home (I go home for lunch).  I didn’t notice the building was being torn down until they had completely removed all trace of it.

This is because my filter removed it from my field of vision.  This has happened to you too.  The more conscious and awake you become the more you can learn to remove the filters so that you can see those open doors of opportunity.

Several years ago, after the murder of my nephew and the collapse of my sisters nonprofit that she had created afterwards, I discovered my souls purpose with LemonadeMakers.

LemonadeMakers after several years of inner growth preparation it is starting to grow above the ground. The trunk and branches have been growing, and we are about to have a whole lot of pieces of what I have been working on finally come together.

Supporting LemonadeMakers has changed me in ways that I can’t even believe myself. I have grown and changed so much personally. I have seen just how important it is to invest in yourself, and have a personal coach. The time, effort, and money spent means that I have taken the zip line through the jungle, instead of traveling on foot and breaking the trail.

Without coaching I know that I would have probably given up. The hero’s journey with this business has suffered setbacks with our website when I spent a lot of money and the service provider went out of business.  Then with the financial freefall of 2007-2012 recovery when I suffered a large loss of income.  With the support of good friends, the support of great coaches, and my own blood, sweat and tears, whatever roadblock that appears, I manage to keep going and keep growing.

From the place of my own experience in transformational growth, I encourage you to seek out personal coaching in some way. It is hard to see what is happening deep within the root system below you, or high up at the tips of your branches. A good coach, friend or mentor is a mirror reflecting back to you what you can’t see. We all need that friend that removes the toilet paper trailing behind you when you walk out of the bathroom, or smooths out the wild hair in the back of your head.

Just remember that every second is a fresh start to begin nurturing the roots and the branches of your tree. Every day is what you chose to make of it, how you are living your dream out in the world. When you have unrestricted flow between the roots and branches of your tree, you will see the greatest harmony flow into your life.  You will think of something, and make the connection, and produce the result almost without effort.

Ask

Believe

Receive

Contact LemonadeMakers if you want to see if having a personal coach is your next step.

There are no endings. Just New Beginnings

“Keep going.  Everything you need will come to you at a perfect time” – unknown

Just keep swimming.  The storm clouds will pass, and the sun always shines once again.  It may seem like you are walking through the valley of shadows and death alone, but that is an illusion.

There is the invisible spiritual world that is always by your side.  There are friends and relatives that may not know how to help, what to say or do – but they are cheering you on.  There are people in this world who every night pray for those who feel they are lost on life’s journey.

Just as your faith can move mountains, your doubts are what put them there.  Stop creating barriers that you have to fight to get over.

“Have the courage to make the change, the strength to see you through it, and faith that everything will turn out for the best” – unknown

Some leave you because they are not interested in a transformational journey any longer.  They wish to stay safe within their comfort zone and make no waves that might swamp their little boats.

Some you leave because you realize that you can’t continue to carry their weight and still walk your own path.  You have to cut the chains that are dragging you down.

Out of the best of motives, you find that you have done too much for someone, and you have to stop.  It only hurts them to continue.  You are not giving up on them.  It was just time to release them to their own journey, and for them to find their own way.  It is not the end of your story, just the end of their part in your story.  And that is ok.

“Note to self:  None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought.  Eat the delicious food.  Walk in the sunshine.  Jump in the ocean.  Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure.  Be silly.  Be kind.  Be weird.  There’s no time for anything else” – Nanea Hoffman

If you have never read any of Caroline Myss’s books or heard her speak I highly encourage you to check out her body of work.  To me she is that really critical aunt that drove you crazy as a kid, but you learn to love and appreciate as an adult.  Because everything that she says is total reality, no sugar coating, and is the best advice that you could get.

The whole reason to be on the path to personal self-transformation is to realize that there are parts of you that are not in balance.  To learn how to bring them back out of the shadow and into the light.  You can’t do that work unless you are willing to be totally honest with yourself.

“Facing personal truths and purging yourself of addictions or manipulative habits requires strength, courage, humility, faith, and the other qualities of a soul with stamina, because you are not just changing yourself; you are changing your universe.  Change one coordinate in your spiritual compass and you change your entire life’s direction” – Caroline Myss

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears” – Nelson Mandela

If you are willing to make a few mistakes, to have a few failures, you can learn how to release the monsters from under your bed.  You can take on one monster at a time.  You can talk to it and learn its story, its reason to exist.  They were created when you were small and most of their stories are just bits of truth wrapped up in drama, trauma, and misunderstanding.

If you can unwind the experience, you can help them take off their masks and their costumes.  You can take away their illusions.  You can help them understand that their help was exactly what we needed at the time.  You can thank them for protecting you.  And if you can change one small thing for them, you can transform their relationship with you.

One small change at a time, one degree makes all of the difference.

 

“It takes courage to grow up and become who we really are” e.e. cummings

Walking on the path of the transformation life, you sometimes find your path ends with a large body of water that needs to be crossed.  You might swim across, but sometimes that body of water has a strong current, rapids or even is close to the drop off of a waterfall.  So, swimming might seem too risky.

You could look for a way to build a bridge across.  But you might decide that you don’t have the “know how” to build a bridge.

You could build a boat to row across, but maybe you don’t have the funds to buy the lumber.

Or you could fly.

What you must never do is to be afraid of doing whatever is needed to get across that body of water.  Because the worst thing that can happen is that you build a house alongside that body of water, and never even attempt to get across.  That is guaranteed to give you a life of regrets.  To be always wondering “what if?”  What if you could have flown across?

What might you have accomplished in your life, if you had just risked continuing down the path of a transformational life?

What is necessary is that you are stronger than your excuses.  Whenever you hear yourself say the word, “but”, you need to stop what you are saying.  Because whatever follows but is an excuse.  You don’t need to unpack your backpack at the word “but” and build a home there.  What you need to do is to get a shovel and dig under the excuse to find the pattern of sabotage that is underneath the excuse.

Root out the pattern and recognize it as a fear.  Shift and change how you are dealing with that fear.  Doubt has built another mountain, and you can refuse to climb it.  You can instead have faith in yourself, in your friends and family, in your spiritual beliefs, and know that if you built that mountain, you can take it apart and keep on your journey.

“When it is all finished, you will discover that it was never random” – unknown

When I look back at what I thought were mistakes, I see these links.  I took a new job, which ended three months later.  I was laid off and I couldn’t find work.  I lost my car because I had no money.  I moved out of state.  I got a new job and the reason they hired me?

It was because of what I was doing at that job for three months.  That experience led to a promotion for a position that I had been aiming for, to teaching at two different community colleges, to creating and running a training program for seven branches of a savings and loan bank.  None of which would have happened without that job for three months.

So was it a mistake?  I don’t think so.  Nothing in that string of experiences was random.  I was following the path of self transformation.  Sometimes the path kicks you butt, and sometimes you kick it back.

So, what do we do?  You swim.  You just keep swimming.  You make mistakes and you keep swimming.  You try new things and you keep swimming.  You change yourself, your world and you just keep swimming.

I hope this year, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.
You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, wherever it is, art, or love, or work, or family, or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, DO IT.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
– Neil Gaiman

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

“Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you”  – Marsha Norman

Such a beautiful idea, dreams coming from your soul, as illustrations of what you can accomplish with your life.  What kind of life did you imagine when you were five?  Ten?  Twenty?  Forty?  Sixty?

• What came true and what did you throw away and abandon on the ground?
• What fears, excuses, and failures did you blame that abandonment on?
• Are you ready to turn a page and start the dream over?

Your dreams are waiting patiently for you to come back and try again.  But it isn’t a matter of doing the same things that already failed to bring your dreams into reality.

It is all about you transforming and changing yourself, so that you can become the person who can support that dream.  I think that is why many fail so many times.  You keep thinking that you just need to keep climbing the same slippery slope.  And every time you slide back down, you think you just need to try harder.

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now” –  Mattie Stepanek

Dreams serve a dual purpose.  They grow you, shift and change you in order to accomplish them.

And they bring something wonderful into the world, to shift and change others besides yourself.  Dreams are realities not yet beheld.

The story of the Starfish –

What you are doing right this minute, is the beginning of that future.  Even if it is as simple, as saving one starfish.

“Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality.  Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny” – Shinzoo.com

When you work on becoming the person you need to become, to bring your dream into reality, how do you know what you need to transform within yourself?  The clues are like key holes in the walls that you built out of your fears.

Take for example the fear of public speaking.  It is said to be one of the most common fears that everyone has.  You probably have this fear.  So the wall of fear that you have built is designed to avoid any situations in which you might be asked to speak.  Your body will fight against you.  Some people go into hot/cold sweats.  Some become nauseous and even throw up.  Some people get that deer in the headlight look and forget everything, including their own name.

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

You have to discover what is lying underneath the rock called fear of public speaking.

• Was there something that happened in the past where you were subject to public humiliation?
• Is it tied to a lack of confidence that you have something to say that others would find worthwhile?
• Is it about your own judgment of how you look up on stage?
• Do you drown yourself in the “what if’s?”
  • What if I trip on the stage?
  • What if the microphone doesn’t work right?
  • What if I drop my notes and they are now in the wrong order?

Get curious as to what is underneath your own fear rock.

“Do what you have to do, until you can do what you want to do” – Oprah

When you pick up a literal rock, you might find dozens of different kinds of insects buried underneath it.  Within your rock of fear, there it isn’t just one answer buried underneath it.  It is usually several different items that are weaved together to create the illusion of a huge unmovable boulder of fears. But as you unwind and untangle each fear, acknowledge it, and see how you can transform it, the illusion of the boulder shrinks down into a manageable fear rock.

As you transform those fears with speaker training; As you practice and become well prepared; you realize that your speech isn’t about you.  It’s about helping your audience.  You discover that giving a speech can be a wonderful experience. Having some butterflies in your stomach before speaking is normal.  And having some nervousness with the first couple of sentences is common.  You are planting the seeds of your future success in bringing your dreams into reality.

“Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality” – Malala Yousafzai

What makes it a “Life Transformation” is the realization afterwards, that while it might not be perfect, you did it!  That someone in that audience needed to hear what you have to say. You spoke to that one starfish and helped it get back into the ocean.

You gain the confidence to realize that if you can conquer what might have been a crippling fear about being a public speaker; what else could you transform in your life that has been holding you back?

When you do something this transformational, you literally shift every cell in your body and become a new person.  You can’t go back to that person you were before.  Like the caterpillar, you just emerged from the chrysalis and spread your beautiful butterfly wings and took flight.

As you transform yourself with change after change, you discover that your dream itself keeps growing.  So the journey keeps going.

Along the way you will meet people who tell you logically, that you are wasting your time trying to save a beach full of stranded starfish.  You will experience epic failures.  You will be disappointed by other people who you thought were in the dream with you for the long haul.

If you stay true to your dream and honor your imagination and never, ever, give up – you will be a winner in bringing that dream a lot further than you could have imagined at the beginning.

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Here at LemonadeMakers, we are happy to have those kinds of deep conversations, to help you figure out what is underneath the fears that seem to be holding you back from living your life purpose.  Contact us anytime.

Hard Times Are Life’s Opportunity To Take Off And Fly Into Your Potential

Isn’t funny how you will look at someone as being “the overnight success” story.  There is no such thing as the overnight success.  Every step that we take in bringing our dreams into reality has a price.  People don’t see the 10,000 hours you put in to become the master that you are today.  They don’t see the hours that you continue to put in to hone your gifts into the genius category.  What if instead of getting mad about someone’s cutting remarks, we stayed silent.  And to take it one step further, what if instead of crying about what they just said or did (which is what they want) you laughed out loud about it?  What if you said, “if you hate this, just wait – I have more achievements that you can be mad about coming.”  And my personal favorite, “If you don’t like me and still watch everything I do, you’re not my haters, you’re my fans.”

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

The sad thing is that we listen to the critics at all.  We can have 10 people come up and gush all over us, how wonderful we are, so inspiring.  And then one person finds something negative to say about us, usually personal and not having anything to do with the job we do, and that is all we think about.  What if we turned it around?  Instead of taking it personally and getting wounded, what if we took it as a sign that we have something within us that needs to be released.  Thanking them, literally, because they just made you aware of some personal work that you need to do for yourself?  Just a little housecleaning to track down where that hurt you just felt is actually coming from.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

 – African Proverb

I have always loved the quote from Theodore Roosevelt.  It puts everything into perspective, because most haters are not putting themselves out there to accomplish their dreams.  They become haters because the truth that you are living, shows up the lies they are telling themselves.  They become haters because every time one of us puts ourselves out there, it reflects to them that they aren’t fulfilling their own personal destiny.  Every time we get back up from the failures, and keep going until we win through, it is like a stake in their hearts because they are too afraid to fail and so they don’t take even the first step into the arena.  They know that they have a divine destiny, a life purpose.  Instead of listening and following their souls calling, they smother their heart when it cries out to them to walk into the arena and get dirty.

It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deed could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 – Theodore Roosevelt

So how do you unlock your own potential?  You get curious.  You look for open doors to walk through.  You go on adventures.  You read, watch and listen and then think, think, think.  You wonder what if? What could I just do next?  What happens when I?  Like Alice in Wonderland, each step down the path brought something new into her life.  She realized that every single day she was a totally new person; that nothing was impossible; and that all of us are just a little bit mad; and it is always tea time.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough”

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

Whenever I hear the word relentless, I think of a small child.  You know that age where they ask “why”?  Why is the sky blue?  Why do dogs bark and cats meow?  Why, why, why?  At first it is cute.  Then it drives you mad.  Children are great examples of being relentless when they want something.  How many times as parents have we said no, only to give in later because we can’t take it anymore?  But like a lot of excellent childlike qualities at some point most of us lose that quality of being relentless.  We stop asking because they will just say no.  We don’t ask because what if they say no and we put ourselves out there just to be shot down.  We don’t want to be annoying, or look foolish or be a failure, and . . . . .  so we make excuses.  We place the blame on others.  We start looking around for things that won’t be hard to do.

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

Unknown

Find a purpose in life so big, that it challenges every belief you have.  That it challenges you to do things and try things that never occurred to you before.  Instead of following the crowd, break out and find your own path.  Change the way you think.  Your story gives you so many clues to your life purpose.  Your dreams are like sign posts pointing you in the direction to go forward and bring them into reality.  Your souls voice is you refusing to be quiet and invisible.  We can’t know your story until you tell it.  Whether that is from speaking, writing, acting, dancing, singing – whatever form it takes, it must be told.  Your story isn’t about being a victim, it isn’t about the tragedy that happened.  Your story is about how you overcame “all that stuff”, and how you took life’s lemons and made the best lemonade in town.

I recently read an article about a 10 year old boy in Texas who likes to invent things.  In his neighborhood, there had been a baby left in a vehicle in the summer that had died.  It really affected him.  Now he wasn’t like most of us, saying how could someone forget their child in the car.  He wasn’t thinking that they should go to jail.  What he was thinking was what could I invent so that when someone makes a tragic mistake, it doesn’t have to result in the death of a baby?  So he now has a patent pending for a little cooler that looks like a giant lego, that will turn on when the heat gets too high and the car seat is occupied by a child.  By cooling the baby, it makes time for the parent to remember they left the child in the car and rescue them.  What struck me about this story is that this totally preventable situation has been happening for years and it never occurred to millions of adults to create some sort of mechanism in the car seat to cool the child and buy enough time for the child to be rescued.  How many other opportunities are there out there for some great thinking outside the box that will save lives? 

How big is your purpose?

 

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Follow Your Inner Compass

“If you follow the inner path using truth and clarity as your compass points, the outer world cannot help but respond to your intention”  – Deepak Chopra

Years ago I used to travel with work three weeks of almost every month. I flew into or drove through almost every state except Alaska, Maine and Hawaii. The rental cars were charging extra for the GPS and my employer seldom got a rental car with one. It was printed directions from google maps or a similar program. My favorite saying was no trip was complete without at least one U-turn.

My husband swears that I have no sense of direction, and at some point in almost every trip I would get lost. Sometimes I thought I must have driven too far and would turn around, only to find the destination had been just a little further down the road. Other times I would drive around in circles. Did you know that in some places in New Jersey they don’t allow left hand turns? You have to do this weird three right turns so that you are on the street which crosses the intersection to the address you are looking for. It once took me 20 minutes to figure out what the directions were telling me to do.

“You inner voice always knows what to do, but it is a quiet voice.  You can only  hear the whisperings of your inner voice, your inner compass – when you turn down the volume of your fears, your regrets, your resentments, and the fear based advice your neighbors are so willing to give you” – Jonathon Lockwood Huie

So I have experience both literally and metaphysically with turning around because I am going in the wrong direction. The most interesting thing about it though, is how do you know when you are going in the wrong direction? How do you tell that it is time to turn around, because you will not be able to get to your destination on the road that you are traveling on? How do you know that you don’t just need to drive a little further down the road?

“You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible: – Deepak Chopra

The first thing that I had to do on my actual road trips was quit stressing about being late; about being lost; and just stop and get my bearings. When I stopped stressing and looked at the directions calmly I would usually see where I went the wrong way or what I misunderstood. Sometimes I had to humble myself and call the place I was trying to get to and ask for directions. Sometimes there was a nearby gas station to give me directions. The same is true on the metaphysical level.

“The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality” – Conan O’Brian

When you get grounded, release the stress, and get into that calm place – you can get your bearings. You just need to breathe, trust and let go. This gives your inner compass a chance to get your bearings and stop spinning wildly in circles. Your true north will always draw you to it.

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.  What you’ll discover will be wonderful.  What you’ll discover is yourself” – Alan Alda

Sometimes the issue isn’t that your lost. It is that you are living a life of holding your potential in check. You need to be brave and unleash the potential to start moving. You feel like if you claim that you are lost, you won’t run the risk of failure. By quitting you are playing it safe.

The truth is that whether you stay put or move forward, there is a price that is being paid. Since you are already paying for being stuck in place, why not go ahead and pay the price of moving forward – why not “RELEASE THE KRAKEN” and move forward?

“You gut is your inner compass.  Whenever you have to consult with other people for an answer, you’re headed in the wrong direction” – Oprah

Being lost is just a nuisance. There is no new discovery until you release the potential.  Your potential is revealed by your values, your purpose.  It is part of the souls journey.  So put on the backpack, grab the walking stick, partner with a trustworthy friend and get going. Risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight and discover what your human spirit is all about.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Live An Extraordinary, Creative, Inventive Life

Unexplored Possibilities Are Waiting For You To Release Them

“Limitations live only in our minds.  But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless” – Jamie Paolinetti

Possibilities are like rabbits.  The more you think about them, the more they multiply.  Pretty soon you have a field full of them.  The trick is to turn them into probabilities.  Probabilities are a guide to enlightenment, in the journey of life.

It is the secret of how the Phoenix arises from the ashes and is reborn.  The Phoenix has coded in its DNA the belief of triumph over impossible odds.  So even when defeated, it rises once more from the ashes to achieve the impossible.

Imagination is like turning on the faucet.  When you start imagining the possibilities, the water gets turned on and you start getting ideas.

The trick is to just start writing them down.  No judgement or editing or being critical.  Just put them down on paper, idea after idea.  Possibility after possibility.

Once you have wrung every last drop out of your faucet, then you start looking at each possibility and see how many of them can grow into a probability.

That is how the miracles are born.  It is looking for the one thing that leaps off the page, no matter how impossible it seems.  That is the one, the one that your inner guidance is calling out for.  That is the one that causes the Phoenix to rise up from the ashes.  Do not allow the critical, judgmental thinking to chain it from taking flight.

“Possibilities and miracles mean the same thing” – Prentice Mulford

So where does that critical judgmental thinking come from?  It comes from your own insecurities.  From every unkind word you have heard.   From every well-meaning person who said, “Oh no honey, you can’t do that”, girls aren’t good at sports, math, or science.  Or boys don’t playhouse or with dolls.  From every time you tried something, failed and walked away.  From every time you said you would do something and didn’t.

All of those negative experiences pile up in your mind and become these critical judgmental thinking machines.  They promise you safety, that you won’t get hurt if you listen to them, but in reality, they are the bars of a prison of your own making.

The trick is to not believe the magician with his sleight of hand tricks. Not becoming attached to those negative beliefs.  They can become chains linked to an anchor that you drag around.  Your imaginations can’t take flight with chains connected to an anchor keeping you bound to the earth.  You need to release all of those negative, judgmental thoughts, as they do not serve you.

They are limitations, illusions of the magician.  He tells you that if you leave his stage, you will be in darkness, no longer in the protection of his light.  If you build barricades from his illusions of danger, they will leave you exposed to having lived an “unlived” life.  A life lived without passion and purpose.  A life that doesn’t fulfill your divine destiny.

“Breathe in the sweet air of limitless possibility, and make life as rich as you know it can be” – Ralph Marston

 

Probability of Success

I won’t – 0%

I can’t – 10%

I don’t know how – 20%

I wish I could – 30%

I want to – 40%

I think I might – 50%

I might – 60%

I think I can – 70%

I can – 80%

I am – 90%

I did – 100%

Increase your chances of success by saying “I can, I am, and I did”.  What if you stopped saying, “I wish I could” and instead said, “Guess what I did today?”

We at LemonadeMakers would love to hear your stories.  Drop us an IM and share both your successes and not so successful stories.  And as always, let us know if we can assist you in burning those insecurities.  We love a good bonfire!

Silence Is The Space Between The Words, The Inner Sanctuary Of The Heart

When tragedy strikes someone that we love, we all have this tendency to want to fix it. That if we just had the perfect words to say, or the right thing to do, we could make it all better.

But grief is a walk alone.  Others can be there, and listen.  But you will walk alone down your own path, at your own pace, with your sheared-off pain, your raw wounds, your denial, anger, and bitter loss.  You’ll come to your own peace, hopefully . . . but it will be on your own, in your own time.

– Cathy Lamb

When I was younger they had these commercials for both band-aids and children’s aspirin. In the band-aid commercial the mom puts a band-aid on the little boys scrape, kisses it and he is smiling and his pain is gone. In the baby aspirin the pill magically makes the child feel better. Unfortunately, in real life, we can’t always “kiss it and make it better.”

What we can do is be there with a hug and a listening ear. Let them vent their anger, cry out their sadness, and get a release for the overpowering emotions.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing . . . not healing, not curing . . . that is a friend who cares.

  – Henri Nouwen

When my nephew was killed, my sister was so strong. Making all of the funeral arrangements, who would speak at the service, what songs would be sung, renting the ballroom at the boardwalk – she went all out and was so together. She spoke at the funeral of the over seven years trying to get pregnant because her endometriosis was so bad. How when he was born, the cord was around his neck several times and she had to have an emergency C-section. All the years of loving him, and what he gift he was to her life. She told these stories and not one tear or breakdown. She hugged everyone at the memorial and not one breakdown. I don’t think that I could have done what I saw her do.

Later that night, all of the busyness of the funeral was done, then she broke down. All I could do was hold her. Tell her I loved her. That I was there for her. It was the first time, I couldn’t “kiss it and make it all better.” It has been several years of holding her and loving her, but she has come out the other end of a dark tunnel.

The reality is that you will grieve forever.  You will not “get over” the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it.  You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered.  You will be whole again but you will never be the same.  Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.

  – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

There comes a time when the healing happens. It doesn’t mean that you no longer miss what has been taken from you, just that it no longer controls your life. Each of us handles grief differently. We shouldn’t judge another person by how they handle it or expect them to “be better faster.”

No rule book.  No time frame.  No judgement.  Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.  Do what is right for your soul.

  _ Hw

We can look with fresh eyes at the beauty that still exists in our world. We can walk step by step in the arms of loved ones, knowing that when we stumble in the darkness of grief, they will put the light of hope in our hearts, that things will get easier.

Healing comes when we choose to walk away from darkness and move towards a brighter light.

  – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Listening to the silence of the night, we can open our hearts and ears to the sounds of the universe. If we just be in the present moment, we can hear beautiful songs we have never heard before. The night insects, like crickets will sing to us. We can hear the night birds, like the owl tells us a story. We can be serenaded by the croaking of the frogs. Never stop listening for the messages from the creator, because these messages will be a balm to our hearts, helping us to heal.

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The Best Things In Life Are The Moments When We See The Little Things Clearly

 Such a profound question – what is life?

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, that hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity.  

  – Gilda Radner

When you look around at your friends and family, how many people do you know that “just exist”? They are here. They wake up each day. They take in the breath of life, they eat, they go to work or school, they come home and watch a movie, TV, play video games. They are here, but what else is there in life, besides just being here?

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. 

   – Marcel Proust

There is something about asking questions that opens life up.  About being curious.  Asking yourself the questions that you are afraid to ask, afraid of how the answers might change your life.  Questions like, “Why am I not happy with who I am”?

Be not afraid of life.  Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

  – William James 

I think that there is more to life, than just existing. I think of some of the stories that I love best. They are made up of characters that progress down a timeline, the hero’s journey. They are walking along a path and something happens. Things go wrong, they change to meet the challenges and come out the other end a different person than the one we met in the beginning of the story.

Time is like a river, you cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.  Enjoy every moment of life . . . ,

  – Unknown

They discover things about themselves during the journey. They discover the “fire in the belly”, passion. They learn to speak up and speak out. They learn that they have courage to fight for truth, justice, life and liberty. We root for them to beat the odds and win. Take the first “Rocky” movie.  He is employed in a sketchy business as a collector for a loan shark..  He boxes and  is made fun of, nothing but a loser and a bum.  He dreams of a better life and thinks that fighting in the ring, could be his ticket to be somebody. He gets a one in a million shot at it, wins against the heavyweight champion, falls in love.

Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. 

  – Unknown

Boxing was his passion.  He learned to have self confidence in his talent.  He learned that we can all be somebody if we are willing to pay the price of hard work to make it happen.  If we are willing to not give up when it looks hopeless.  As the rest of the series of movies show, transformation is an ongoing process.  We will learn valuable and painful lessons when we don’t remain conscious of who we are and where we are going in life.

Most of us have been through some sort of personal hero’s journey in our life.

Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. 

  – Unknown 

What did we discover about ourselves? Brendon Buchard tells a story about his own personal journey when he was in college. He had a bad breakup with his girlfriend.  She was the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with.  So to try and get out of his depression he went on a trip with a college friend to South America.  They were driving in a rural mountainous area on a narrow road.  The road turned out to be a hairpin curve.  His friend lost control of the car, and they went tumbling off the mountain.  When he came to he was bleeding.  They had fallen down a ravine.  He thought that he was dying.  In despair he asked himself three questions – Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?

Thankfully they didn’t die.  They both got medical attention, and when he returned to the United States he was a different person.  He is an international bestseller with multiple  books; he is the founder of Experts Academy and High Performance Academy and is a sought after motivational speaker.  How was his life impacted from getting a broken heart?  From an auto accident that could have ended his life?  We never know how the painful experiences of our life, will be positively used for the rest of our lives.

Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen at once. 

  – Paulo Coelho

I think that we all want to live a life that results in great friends and family that love us.  That results in us being happy and passionate about what we do with our days and nights.  That results in knowing that we had a positive impact in the world. But sometimes we fall asleep to those dreams.  Sometimes we get so beaten down by our hero’s journey, that we give the dream up as being impossible.  What I have discovered in life is that we tend to do one of two things.  We act without thinking our decision all of the way through and so we end up paying the bill of “unintended  consequences”.  Or we think about it, and think about it, and do nothing about it.  Why?  Because we can’t face our fears about “what if?”.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.  Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.  Let reality be reality.  Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they life. 

  – Lao Tzo

So each morning, what if the first question we ask ourselves is:

If my life is a story, what can I do today to make it a New York Times Bestseller?

What could I do today, that a movie producer would want to make my life into an inspirational movie?

What can I do today that uses up all the best parts of me (my talents), to inspire the world around me to be a better place?

What can I do today that makes people laugh, smile and be more joyful?

Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live. 

  – Norman Cousins

They have a saying, that the best stories are in the graveyard.  There are books that never got written; apologies and forgiveness that were said in their heart, but never left their lips.  Millions of secret recipes that never got passed on.  Don’t wait for the end to ask, “Did I live, love and matter”, but instead ask it each night.  Ask if you showed love, and gave love to others each night. Ask if you were able to do one small thing today that mattered to someone. If you can say yes, to these questions each night, you have a wonderful life. You inspire me to try harder, to be better, to live fully in the present. To lose myself in the sunset.

Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun. 

  – Randy Pausch

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