Categories
Attitude Courage Faith Motivation Possibility Wisdom

The unfettered power of “Tomorrow …”

 

Categories
Courage Expectations Faith Motivation Possibility

What ‘believing’ looks like

Categories
Attitude Expectations Knowledge Motivation Wisdom

Effort, Performance, Networks, and Success

The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success

1. Performance drives success, but when performance is immeasurable, networks determine success.

2. Performance is bounded, but success is unbounded.

3. Fitness x Previous Success = Future Success.

4. While team success requires diversity and balance, a single individual will receive credit for the group’s achievements.

5. Success can come at any time as long as we are persistent.

A Network Theorist Seeks “Universal Laws of Success”

Categories
Attitude Expectations Motivation Possibility

Yes, you can …

… become who, and what, you want to be.

– Gerard Carlse

Categories
Attitude Motivation Wisdom

Person to person …

Categories
Attitude Faith Motivation Wisdom

Faith

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”

Margaret Fishback Powers (1964)

Categories
Motivation

Darkness, before Dawn

Keep Going.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
And the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must—but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man.
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

Edgar A. Guest (1921)

Categories
Attitude Courage Leadership Motivation Values

This Little Light of Mine

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love, 1992)

Categories
Attitude Motivation Possibility

Rumble, Young Man, Rumble

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.
– The Champ (Muhammad Ali)

Categories
Motivation

Re-Birth

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.
– Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins)