Tag: inspiration

GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR!

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These three people are all very different as you can see. The one on the left is my beautiful lady Margie. She is the most amazing djs you have ever met. She helps people discover they have a truly beautiful voice inside them and encourages them to expand outside of their comfort zone. She also creates cakes that are nothing short of a miracle. The joy in people’s hearts and on their faces when they receive one is such a great feeling to witness. She brings so much light into the lives of others it is amazing. She also does an amazing job of supporting the man in the middle, that would be me. I relate all the positive ideas I have learned and are continuing to learn through this website, YouTube, in my book and soon in seminars. More on that in tomorrow’s post. This blog is about neither of these two people however.

It is about the gentleman on the right. His name is Travis “Treezy” Jones. I wrote about him a few posts (see ‘then make a new one’ August 20th) for those of you who may not have read that post let me share a bit about him. Mr. Jones is a very talented performer and comes to lots of shows that my lady is the DJ at. He always reminds people to be positive and bring the best out of themselves. In a bar environment this can often be a challenge as you might imagine. A lot of what he tries to impart on the souls of others tends to get lost in the music and the alcohol. This is unfortunate because a lot of what he says can be life-changing and transformative. In the last few months Travis has had to deal with a lot of personal challenges. Remaining positive, something that came to him so easily seemed to be a lot more difficult. We sat down and spoke several times. As often when two like-minded people who come from different experiences get together a lot of great ideas are formed.

So what did we come up with? What great idea was created? Before I give you the quick answer, let me ask you a question. Have you ever wanted to get in on the ground floor of something? Have you ever wanted to be a part of something and watch it grow? Maybe even to your part to help that cause? Well, now you have that chance. In our discussions we decided Travis needed to reach more people. Not only did his original message of positivity and bringing your best still ring true, but what he learned from all of his personal challenges could really help others. So what did he do? He created his very own website! Now his words of wisdom can reach a worldwide audience. The website is called bringitivity.net I encourage you all to check it out. In fact, I would recommend following it. Many people give up and begin to follow a dark path when faced with challenge. This man chose to not only rise above it, but in doing so help others. His message is one we could all stand to hear. So whether you are in Brazil or Greenland do yourself a favor and give Mr. Jones and his ideas a look. They just might change your life.

BALANCED GARDENING

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This blog is not called “Secret2anamazinggarden” but please allow me to dispense with some gardening advice. First you start with some seeds. Some you may have picked out, some you may have just found in the garage or the basement and thought it may be fun to grow. At least that is how it seems to work in my family. Now you must choose a place for your garden to grow. You pick a fine spot one which has both enough shade and enough sun for a good garden needs the right mix of both. Then you prepare the land for the garden. Clearing away debris, rocks and anything else that may inhibit the plants from growing. Then you plant the seeds, water them and begin the wait for them to grow. You know they will take a few days to a few weeks for the plants to sprout so you do not expect to harvest a crop the next day. Now as the days pass you continue to water and take care of what you have planted to give them the best chance to grow. Soon something starts to grow in your garden. If your luck is anything like mine they are called weeds. Sometimes they even sprout before the things we have planted. So you must work on removing them to allow the plants to grow. The next day you come out and sure enough your plants have started to grow! Unfortunately so have more weeds. You think didn’t I just remove these yesterday? So you water the plants and pull the weeds. Then you notice a small little worm starting to eat the leaves of your plants. Great you got rid of the weeds now you have pests to deal with too? So you take steps to remove the pests, water your plants, maybe even fertilize them a bit and pull the weeds. This whole production goes on for weeks, perhaps even months. After which time you begin to be able to pick some fruits and vegetables. Some plants only give you one harvest, others continue to provide as long as you take care of them.

Ok, so what does all this have to do with living an amazing life? The steps to growing a good garden are fairly easy to understand even though they do take a good amount of time and effort. Honestly so are the steps to growing an amazing life. They are also quite similar. Let’s compare. The seeds are like your skills and talents. Some you are just born with, others you may choose and wish to develop. The spot for your garden is like the life you chose. You need enough sun and shade. Time to shine and time to relax. Even if your plot of ground is not ideal with the right effort you can still grow a very good garden. So you plant your seeds or choose your skills and talents you wish to develop. Now here is where some people get off track. They water them once and expect a crop the next day. Everything in life takes time. Sometimes even longer than it normally should. A plant will take longer to sprout if the weather is cool and there is a lack of sun. So a talent may take longer to develop if some key ingredients are missing. Continue to take care of them both and they will surely grow. Now come the weeds which can be likened to the challenges that arise in our life. Often before our talents had a chance to get started. Now when the first weed pops up do we give up on the garden? I hope not or you will never grow anything. Still if we do not do our best to remove the weed it will continue to grow and take over our garden. The same can be true of our challenges and weaknesses. If we do not strive to improve them eventually they will choke out any chance of a good life for us. So now your plants start to sprout, or in the case of your life you begin to see your talents come to light. If you only focus on removing the weeds or improving your weaknesses and never water your plants or build your strengths they will surely die. This is a curse of even the person with the best intentions on self-improvement. They often see it as just “fixing the problems with themselves” That is only roughly 50% of the plan. You must also grow the good that is in you. Develop it fully so you can bring the most to the world. So we come to the pests. What do they represent in the real world? Well, simply put, pests. They are the negative people who come into our lives and begin to eat our dreams and hold us back from our goals. if we do nothing to eliminate them or at the very least reduce their effect on our lives we will have no garden at all. Now much like a garden more weeds and pests will always come up and at times it might seem frustrating but if we keep watering our plants and pulling the weeds quite often they will provide us with far more fruits than we expected. So work on not only removing the challenges in your life and improving your weaknesses, but growing your talents. Try to at least make that a 50/50 effort, but understand much like in a garden both will continue in order for us to continue you reap our harvest

A BETTER QUESTION….

Don’t ask what if I fail. You will. A better question is when I fail, then what? This may not seem to positive at first glance, telling you that you are going to fail and all. Still, failure is only absolute if we learn nothing from it. Believe me when I tell you I was as guilty as anyone of being afraid of failure. I was especially afraid to try new things for the fear I may fail. Then I realized that by being a slave to my fear I was failing to try. Plus, what is the worst thing about failing? People laughing at you? Well first of all that seldom happens, we all have failed and know what it is like. Feeling like a failure? This is something that happens internally. We must understand failure is a lesson. Instead of becoming depressed we must learn to become curious. Why did I not succeed? What can I learn from this experience? These questions actually give us power when we do fall short and give us valuable lessons to move us forward. In fact failure is one of the best teachers. So when you fail realize you just became smarter. Like a lot of other things in life, the secret is learning to use failure, not letting failure use you. So this weekend when things do not go your way, get excited! Ask yourself what you can learn to make your future brighter and to limit or eliminate this sort of challenge from occurring again.

KEEP STUMBLING

If you aren’t stumbling you aren’t moving forward. This was the exact thought I shared with a friend who was dismayed at her attempts to get over a bad relationship and move forward.  It was only after our conversation I realized the true power of what I had said.  Think of any situation in life.  Learning to play an instrument, starting a new job, all the way down to when we did first learn to walk.  Did you just start slow and keep getting better?  How did you get better? In every situation there was some stumbling, either literally in the last example or figuratively in the first two.  By making mistakes we are moving forward.  I often learn the most about people after we have a disagreement about something.  I also learn the most and remember the best after I make a big mistake.  Think of some of the most physical or emotionally painful things that have happened to you.  There are usually followed by the phrase “I’ll never do that again”.  To our credit, most of us don’t, with the glaring exception of celebrating too much on a Friday night.  The truth is, quite often the more painful the lesson, the more powerful the lesson.  Whenever we are trying to accomplish something great we will always suffer some measure of defeat.  The ones who accomplish greatness are the ones who don’t let it stop them.  So next time you catch yourself stumbling remember at least you are moving forward.  It is not possible to stumble while standing still.