Food for Thought

I was looking through my old journals this afternoon trying to find a certain story I wanted to use for a blog post, and instead of the desired story I found this list from May 14, 1993. It’s just as pertinent today as it was back then.

1. Compliment three people every day.
2. Watch the sunrise at least once a year.
3. Be the first to say “Hello.”
4. Live beneath your means.
5. Treat your child like you want to be treated.
6. Never give up on your child. Miracles happen.
7. Forget the Joneses.
8. Never deprive your child of hope. It may be all he has.
9. Pray not for things, but for wisdom and courage.
10. Be tough-minded but tenderhearted.
11. Be kinder than necessary.
12. Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
13. Keep your promises.
14. Learn to show cheerfulness, even when you don’t feel like it.
15. Remember that overnight success usually takes 15 years.
16. Leave everything better than you found it.
17. Remember that winners do what losers don’t want to.
18. When you arrive at your job in the morning, let the first thing you say brighten everyone’s day.
19. Don’t rain on people’s parades.
20. Never waste an opportunity to tell your child you love them.
    

Taken from Life’s Little Instruction Book, 1991, by H. Jackson Brown.

Paying the Bills

Here are the bills again.
I always dread them a little.
They are familiar presences:
first in the mailbox, then in the drawer,
now on the desk.
Services Rendered.
My life is dependent on services rendered....

Please....

Guard me against the arrogance of privilege, against the indulgences of feeling that I don't have enough, and the poverty of spirit that refuses to acknowledge what is daily given me.

Keep me truthful in knowing where I spend, where my values actually are. Gunilla Norris

Two Little Words

The practice of identifying two or three words to act as a mental "anchor" is a wonderful practice, and I encourage everyone to try it.

Today I received this note from a friend...

I have had the words “Effortless Mastery” as a mental focus the last four years and I am getting there more often every month. What I mean with it is something like Presence, Flow, Authenticity and Connectedness. It seems to be paying off. So I am less often thinking about if I do a good job or not (evaluating my contribution) and think more about what needs to happen here now? The difference might seem small – but I don’t think it is. Kaj Török

Here is a little exercise that I usually send out at the first of every year... but I'll add it here a little early.... Enjoy!

• Looking forward, what do you want your overall theme to be? Choose two words that will anchor you to your theme.
• List the ways that this quality will help you move forward both personally and professionally.

Effortless Mastery - Thanks Kaj, that's what I'm working towards too!

Coping with Stress

"Every day poise is acquired or lost before we leave our homes." Sarah Ban Breathnach

From time to time all of us suffer from stress - below are suggestions for coping;

• Cultivate gratitude.
• Set aside an hour a day for solitude. (I have mine first thing in the morning)
• Begin your day with prayer, meditation or quiet reflection; and end it the same way.
• Keep it simple.
• Don't over-schedule - learn to say "no".
• Always carry with you something interesting to read.
• Move - walk, run, dance; use your body!
• Eat only when hungry.
• Set aside one day a week for rest and renewal.
• Laugh!
• Don't answer the telephone, iPhone, Blackberry during dinner - and NO texting!
• Avoid negative people.
• Nurture friendships.
• Change your perspective: Problems = Challenges to overcome.
• Savor beauty.
• Cherish your dreams.
• Express love everyday.
• Breathe -

As the Economy Improves

As fall begins what a great time to reevaluate your overall strategic "plan" and reflect on some of the lessons learned through the past nine months....

As the Economy Improves:

• Analyze some things you’re doing without to see if you really need them, even in better times.
• Start to treat yourself more. That’s a high priority.
• Learn the lesson, and assume this will happen again some time. How can you prepare better in good times? (Our economy has always had recessions, and every single one has ended. I’m fearless in that assessment.)
• In your business, focus on those segments which have stayed strong and also those with the greatest “catapult” effect for rapid growth.
• There are big expenditure periods arriving: year-end holidays, next semester school payments, taxes, and so on. Create an intelligent, managed plan to deal with them now.
• When you’re able, no matter how modest, resume or increase charitable giving. You’ll feel better, and it’s desperately needed (even prior to the recession, because of severe cutbacks in government and corporate giving).
• Plan a vacation and make the time sacrosanct.
• Accommodate two essential elements in your professional plans: marketing and self-development.
• Identify everyone who did you a favor (someone who extended credit, a banker who didn’t call in a loan, a neighbor who was gracious) during tough times, and reciprocate (refer people to them, give them more business, buy a gift).
  *** Alan Weiss – Balancing Act Newsletter

A Change in the Air

"Autumn to winter, winter to spring,

Spring into summer, summer into fall -

So rolls the changing year, and so we change;

Motion so swift, we know not that we move..."
Dinah Mulock Craik

September already... where did the summer go? In two weeks I leave for London... and when I return we will be fully enveloped in autumn.

There is a distinct change in the air and so begins the season of morning frosts, early morning fires in the fireplace, thick sweaters, Pumpkin Spice Lattes (which have already arrived at Starbucks!) and a reflective thoughtfulness.

This is the season I ask myself "What do I want more or less of in my life so that I can love the life I'm leading?"

My answers:

• I want calmness and an inner strength; a deep assurance within of who I am and where I am going.
  
• I want confidence to be myself.... my best self.
  
• I want less fear, less distrust, less comparing myself to others... More joy in the moment.
  
• I want a quick mind and a solidness in the work I do.
  
• I want satisfaction without complacency, and success - tempered with humility.
  
• and I want an abiding gratefulness.

Now my friend, it's your turn - what are the things that you want more or less of in your life so that you can love the life you are leading?

Being Real

This morning I read through some old Windridge Newsletters I wrote back in 2002 – 2003.... They were good, they were filled with authenticity; so simple and so bare....

I find I lose touch with myself when I try to be like everyone else... I want to get back to that place of being real.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." (Velveteen Rabbit)