We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. We are a product of our commitments.
-Dr. Stephen R. Covey  

“No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there.”  Norman Vincent Peale

But don’t expect the possibilities to come with an escalator….you may need to climb out…. in fact I’d say it’s almost a certainty.

Kirk out

“Nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way you worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow.”  Jon Madonna

We could call this the Dinosaur Mindset… extinction thinking.  We must grow, learn, evolve, become…always improving ourselves and our ability to serve the world.  All the while not changing or letting go of the core principles, truths and values that should never change…and in fact that we cannot change.  We can only break ourselves against them.  Yet another way to become extinct and irrelevant.

 Kirk Out

“I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.”~Mark Twain

Goals, more specifically written and declared goals, can give us direction and help us to hold onto a vision and hope for a better and improved future. 

Complaining about what we don’t have or don’t want or wasting our time worrying about what others have that we feel we also deserve…is nothing more than pathetic envy and the road to a wasted and unattractive life.  What we need is to know what we want…(not just wish we had)  what we really really want.  We must desire it enough to be willing to sacrafice something important to obtain it.

At least that is what I think… Kirk out

“That which you or I think is most unique about ourselves we hide. In ordinary discourse, in the normal state, we share our common self, our superficial self. Yet what is most unique about us is what has the greatest potential for bonding us. When we share our uniqueness, we discover the commonality in greatness that defines everyone on the planet.”  ~ Robert Quinn

So this week…let’s not be afraid to share our unique strengths with the world.

Kirk

In response to Wednsdays T4D Terry L Isham sent in this wonderful quote from Mr. True Grit himself… actor John Wayne.  Gosh my Dad loved him.  Thanks Terry

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.  Comes into us at midnight very clean.  It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.  It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”

Not sure what movie it was that he made that statement in, but it is something I have shared with family, friends, and coworkers.

Thanks!

Terry L Isham

“A philosophy of life: I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.” - Paulo Coelho 

When I was little I remember wanted to be like Indiana Jones….out discovering and having adventures.  Then as I got older and I learned the discouraging power of cynicism I gave up such naive hopes of ever having such grand adventures. 

After all what was the point…when there was nothing left to discover, and every inch or our planet has been walked over and dug into by people who were lucky enough to be born before I was?

Then as I got a bit older…. I began to realize that every day help the potential of wonderful discovery….and re-discovery.  I have discovered and rediscovered the wonder of books, of learning, of playing, of my children, of my wife…and of life.

If we believe that it can be…then and only then can it be.

My wife constantly teaches, “We move towards and become that which we consistently think about and believe.”

Well what if we believe… really believe that everyone around us…even the people we have known the longest, have something cool to teach us?  What if they have some gem or treasure that we can discover?  But it may take us a long tedious and sometimes even treacherous journey to bring home that gem. 

So our life need not have lost it’s sense of adventure… unless we have lost ours.  Do you want to go?  Do you want to grow?  Do you want to uncover and discover all that life has hidden away in the books, people and opportunities around you?  Grab your hat and whip….and let’s get going on OUR LASTing GREAT ADVENTURE.

Kirk Out

“No one is less ready for tomorrow than the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow will contain.”  - Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor and Howard Means

This fits all those people in our lives who are prone to denouncing any event in the future with phrases like… “This is gonna suck.”  or “I’m not looking forward to that.” or even  ”You just wait until they turn two.”

I’d love to hear from you guys… what else do people say that indicates they, and we, may not be ready for tomorrow?

 Kirk Out

Last year on Martin Luther King day… I shared a bunch of quotes from this man who “Had a Dream”.  In fact the more I read of him, and by him the more quotes I shared until at least a few T4D subscribers suggested I “move on” to other material.  Here the link to the first post of last year in honor of Dr. King  http://kirkweisler.com/t4d/2009/01/19/martin-luther-king-much-more-than-a-holiday/

Today on this day of dreams… I did a couple things I never dreamed I would do.  I did my first full hour of YOGA.  Me, my wife and about a dozen other women balanced and stretched and breathed and it was wonderful.  Though I breathed heavier, balanced less and am curiously sore from the experience… I am also delighted to have finally experienced Yoga at the tender age of 46.  I never had any ambition do this… never dreamed of doing it.  But today I did…and I’m glad, and I’m going to do it again.

The 2nd thing I did today was buy a couch from a guy who selling furniture door to door.  Seriously… a huge furniture truck pulled into our small neighborhood and a guy knocked on my door and invited me to step into his semi-trailer and buy some furniture!  The biggest thing I have ever bought from the front door is girl scout cookies, Tag-A-Longs to be exact.  

At firt I thought this was either a practical joke or at least illegal.  So I looked for hidden cameras and asked for a business license.   Rebecca and I were laughing that we were actually in the back of this truck looking at furniture.  The only reason I didn’t say no strait away was that only 3 days prior Rebecca had made this statement.  “I think it may be time for us to consider new couches.”

Mere coincidence?  Perhaps, or perhaps the Couch Gods were smiling, or big brother really was listening in!  Either way… I remember telling Rebecca on the way to the truck… “We have to at least look on the truck just so we can tell people about it.”  Even then I didn’t dream that we would actually find or buy something from a furniture truck in the street.  Heck I remember the couches we bought 10 years ago were the result of many visits to many furniture outlets over the course of many weeks.  We had looked at hundreds of couches to find “the one”.  But as you can see in the picture below… a leather couch and ottoman for less that 2k and I never left the house or went online! 

So along with pursuing all of your goals and dreams this year… I invite you to join me in  being open to trying a few things that you never dreamed of.   Doing so might help you stretch like Yoga helped me….and it might give you a place to stretch out when your stressed out like I now have with my new couch and ottoman.  And you never know…something you never even dreamed of, that you can both use, afford and enjoy…might come knocking on your front door.

Kirk out

I am going to call today’s post the “Therapeutic Moment”  because today I just need to take one…so here goes.

I know it’s just the way things are …and that I, you and 100,000 others can’t change it…but still there are days when I want to line up people who SPAM my inbox, by blog site, and mailbox with useless clutter and scams and just give them a good slap upside the head.  Then I want to help them find a real job and some self respect.  ( Whew, thanks… I needed that.)

And finally an attempt to take this quote from Kurt Cobain to a slightly different place.  Kurt said, “I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”    Hmmn, how about ” I would rather be trusted, than loved… and I’d rather be loved for who I am becoming and than just accepted for who I am.”   

As for hated, well “I would rather not be hated at all.  But if I had to be hated, then let it be from people who disagree with my values and views, and not for my weaknesses.  Because the latter would reflect more poorly on them than on me.”   It’s been my experience that people who get all lathered up about the flaws of others … seem to have several deep ones of their own.

And all this from a guy who wants to give Spammers a cuff upside the head and a real job?  Dang I’ve got a ways to go. 

How about you?  What what would like to be loved for?  How about hated for?  Do you need a therapuetic moment?

Make it a great weekend!

Kirk Out

“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”   Theodore Roosevelt 

 (Either he didn”t know about Spammers or he meant “get along” without them  :)