Freedom On Toast

Yep, disappointment.  We all have it from time to time.  Something just doesn’t go our way.  In fact, sometimes things go very differently than what we hoped for and anticipated.

Many of you know that in addition to my wonderful candle business, I also work part-time at our local airlines.  Well last night we had 7 inches of snow, which, as you can imagine, impacted flights a great deal.

As I worked my shift (constantly thinking “free travel, free travel, free travel”) I had the opportunity to see first hand how people handle disappointment.  Some, many actually, handled it with grace.  They were able to see the situation for what it was and make the best of it.  Some joked.  Some were very appreciative of the services that could be provide - limited as they were.

Others - and you know there are “others” - clearly can not handle disappointment.  Some came with an attitude of entitlement.  Some came with anger.  Some came to manipulate.  I even had one woman who spoke in a very exasperated manner, accused me of lying (I guess she didn’t look out the window!), told me she was on her way to her mother’s funeral and when that didn’t work, told me she had just had kidney surgery and her kidney was only functioning at 10%.  Now, that may all be true and if it is then I truly feel bad for her - she has a lot on her plate.  But her presentation FELT so manipulative that I did not have the empathy for her that perhaps she deserved.

The end result?  Well, all passengers are treated pretty much the same.  We really do try to do what we can.  But those who came in with a positive attitude helped everyone.  They felt better about the situation - we clearly felt better about doing everything we could to help.  Those with a sour attitude were helped but even fellow passengers were put off by the demands being made.

So how do you handle disappointment?  If you are in business you know there are great days and days things just don’t go as planned.  Do you let the disappointment derail you or - as my grandfather used to say — do you pull your boot straps up and get going?

Disappointment is a choice as are all feelings.  You can choose to feel disappointed and let it ruin your day or you can acknowledge the disappointment and move on.  Your choice WILL have an impact.  What choice will you make?

Seven Maxims for Creating The Ideal Life!
by Gary Ryan Blair

It all begins with a vision, a vision of creating an ideal life.

The relentless pursuit of that vision will eventually give birth to the picture in your mind. An ideal life born from the unwavering dedication to doing whatever it took to become successful.

Creating the ideal life obviously requires intelligence, but that’s just the start. What’s most important is having a positive set of values, attitudes and habits necessary for your vision to become reality.

The following are Seven Maxims for Creating The Ideal Life:

1. Create a Bigger Future! - Make your future bigger, brighter, and bolder than your past. Your past is history, however your past offers great insights for creating the ideal life. Your past is rich with experiences that are worth thinking about in new ways, and these valuable experiences can become raw material for creating a masterpiece.

Approach your past with this attitude, and you will have an insatiable desire for even better, more enjoyable experiences. Use your past to help you create the ideal future, and you will separate yourself from situations, relationships, and activities that can trap you in the past. Continually use your past only as a foundation for what lies ahead, and you will move closer to your personal north star.

2. Create Contributions Into Other People’s Lives! - The ideal life must include a commitment to serving others. Create a habit whereby your contributions are bigger than your personal gain.

As you become more successful, numerous rewards will come your way: increased income, praise, recognition, reputation, capabilities, status, resources, and opportunities.

As nice and as enjoyable as these rewards can be, they can also become an Achilles heel. Be careful as to becoming too fixated on just the rewards, rather than on making still greater contributions.

To create the ideal life, concentrate continuously on making ever greater contributions into the lives of your family, friends, associates, community and the world at large. Look for ways to empower the human spirit, help others eliminate limiting steps, demonstrate honor, discipline and good character, and look for opportunities to teach and share what you have learned with others.

3. Create a Learning Environment! - The creation of an ideal life is dependent upon your commitment to growth, learning and implementation. You may have a great deal of experience and sit at the front of the class intellectually, but still be no smarter for all of the things you’ve done, seen, and heard.

Experience alone is no guarantee of intellectual growth. To create the ideal life that you envision, you must continually transform your experiences into new lessons, and you will make each day of your life a source of growth, maturity and beauty.

Every experience in life offers an opportunity for learning. The smartest people are those who can transform the smallest event or situation into breakthroughs in thinking and action.

4. Create Higher Standards! - Raise the bar high, higher than you think possible, astound yourself by your performance. To ensure that you have more in life, you must first commit to being more.

Be more committed, focused, disciplined, and relentless. Be the authentic person you are and were meant to be. Be more, do more, demand and expect more from yourself and those around you, and you will be creating the ideal life.

No matter how much acclaim you receive, keep working to improve. The opportunity for growth is unlimited. Continually work to surpass everything you’ve done so far, by continually raising your standards.

5. Create a Greater Appreciation for Life! - Gratitude is essential to creating the ideal life. Over the long run, the few who are continually successful have this in common, they recognize that success springs naturally from the assistance of many other people — and they are continually grateful for this support.

Short-term successes cut themselves off from everyone who has helped them. They see themselves as the sole cause of their own achievements. As they become more self-centered and isolated, they lose their creativity and ability to succeed.

Continually acknowledge others’ contributions, and you will automatically create greater success and a greater quality of life. You’ll continually be motivated to achieve even more for those who have helped you. Focus on appreciating and thanking others, and the conditions will always grow for your increased success.

6. Create Enjoyment and Playfulness! - A greater sense of enjoyment and playful spirit, will automatically create a greater quality of life.

Distressing emotions and humor cannot occupy the same psychological space. A sense of humor helps you to find the lighter side of deadlines and conflicts. It’s a tool for letting go of frustrations and upsets of the moment. A growing conviction that stress levels are running high makes a sense of humor a mandatory condition for the creation of the ideal life.

Fun is the fabric of happy memories, the icing on the cake of life. A life filled with mirth is one well lived, approach everything you do with this sense of enjoyment and playfulness.

7. Create Discomfort! - Of all the maxims advocated, none is of more fundamental value than your willingness and ability to create discomfort. In a very real sense, it is a precondition to all the others.

Always make your goals and dreams greater than your comfort. Recognize that every act of creation, is also a simultaneous act of destruction. The more positive, intentional, and comfort challenging the better.

Many successful people start off with big, bold, breathtaking dreams and ambitions. They take risks, and some on occasions have bet the farm in the process, but the moment they become successful, they start seeking greater security and comfort as their main goal. They begin to play not to lose, rather than playing to win!

They fall asleep at the wheel motivationally, and quickly lose the confidence that made them so successful. Security and comfort are desirable by-products of goal achievement, but when they become the goal itself, they quickly work against you.

Treat any increase of comfort in your life as only a temporary stage for establishing bigger goals. Continually strive for higher goals and achievement, continually place yourself in a position where you have to grow, learn and perform and life will always be an adventure.

The relentless pursuit of the ideal life must continue throughout your life as you pursue the goal of just not meeting, but exceeding even your wildest expectations.

Incorporate these maxims into your life, and share them with others so that you and they might be able to enjoy all that life has to offer.

Everything Counts!
Gary Ryan Blair

I had a friend once tell me that she stood in the grocery store aisle for 20 minutes trying to decide if she should buy a 12 pack of Orange pop (soda for some of you) or Sprite. 20 minutes - then bought neither because she just couldn’t decide. In that time span, I would have given myself about 2 minutes - anything longer and I would have been driving to the pharmacist and requesting some strong medication because I obviously had lost my mind.

But it got me thinking about how we highlight our own lives. Where do you draw big yellow accent lines? Are you highlighting your family relationships? Are you highlighting your career? Your health? Or are you highlighting your indecision? Your fear? Your procrastination?

I love hearing stories from distributors about goals they have achieved. About barriers they have busted. About risks they have taken that have paid off - or not - but at least learned from. Those are great stories to highlight.

But I equally feel sad for those who’s highlighter seldom has the cap removed. They are “saving” the bright yellow for something “really big.” In the meantime, phrases like, “I don’t know if I can do that” or a dreaded “what if (fill in the negative)”. I want to ask, “what is it that you are really saving the bright yellow highlighter for?” Or, “Don’t you want a life story filled with yellow highlights?”

Where is your focus? Honestly. I know you know the “right” answers, but if you step back and really think about what areas of your life you are highlighting are they really important? Or are you standing in the pop aisle for 20 minutes and leaving without any pop?

I don’t think there is anyone alive that has such absolute focus that they highlighter covers all the important areas in life all the time but it sure is a nice ideal.

So as you write your own “story”, leave your own legacy, what passages will be highlighted? What passages will you look back on and wish you have highlighted more - take that opportunity now.

I did something last night that could have resulted in an immediate firing if I still worked in Corporate America. But instead I am involved with a wonderful Natural Candle Company with the nicest owners you could ever hope for.

So here’s the situation…

Our company is having a Regional Conference in Las Vegas at the end of March. All of us who are planning on attending are very excited not only to see each other but to get top-notch training. You see, for the first time in company history we have an “outside” speaker presenting for an entire day. We are honored to have Michael Clouse impart his wit, wisdom and insight to us in glorious “Sin City.”

So last night, Michael Clouse joined our conference call and I was fortunate enough to introduce him to the listeners. Michael, of course, provided quick, helpful nuggets that every distributor at every level could benefit from. The call went great. Until he finished and handed the call back to me.

Uh-oh. This wasn’t the plan (although he probably didn’t know that so I am not faulting him at all). I thought one of the company owners was going to be on the call to end it but I didn’t hear him. So I wrapped the call up, thanked everyone and hung up.

Then the worry set in. Those nasty little voices in my head kept yelling at me, “You weren’t supposed to end the call, Charlie was!” Of course he was. He’s one of the owners. What owner wouldn’t want the opportunity to end a conference call with an internationally recognized industry trainer? Well guess what - no surprises here - Charlie WAS on the line but as I fumbled the ball and just ended the call, he just politely sat back and let me do my thing.

Needless to say I immediately sent the “I am so sorry…” email (with head hung appropriately low) and what was Charlie’s response? “No problem - it was a great call. I love it when the field can participate in these calls.”

All I can say is “wow” - how truly fortunate I am to be doing what I love, enjoying a great deal of freedom, and working with the nicest bunch of owners there could ever be. Life is good.

Thanks Charlie!

So I don’t normally watch videos on YouTube (or anywhere for that matter), but my local radio station was talking about their favorite YouTube videos and one of the DJs mentioned “Charlie Bit My Finger.” So I watched it - and laughed. But what I love the most is the big brother never resorts to violence, never screams bloody murder, never bellows at the top of his lungs “MOM” - he just sort of deals with it in his own big brother way. The world could learn from this big brother.

Enjoy and have a Happy Weekend!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV9PZk8ojF0

I read a great article today by John Assaraf (thanks Cathy for turning me on to him) - about the value of an hour. The article is on point and thought provoking so I thought I would share it. If you would like to learn more about John Assaraf or his works, you can visit his site at www.JohnAssaraf.com Enjoy the article!

What’s the Value of an Hour?

By John Assaraf

When I was 21 years old a gentleman asked me what I thought the value of an hour was. At that point, I honestly did not know how to answer the question. He went on to teach me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned.

He suggested that the value of an hour was priceless. When this confused me some, here is what he went on to tell me this:

If you invest one hour each day in understanding yourself and your environment better, you will accumulate nine 40-hour weeks over the course of a year! As you can imagine I was blown away when he put it to me that way. Nine 40-hour weeks? This seemed impossible until I did the math. 365 days multiplied by one hour each is…yep, nine 40-hour weeks!

He went on to ask me how well I would be able to do something if I did it all day, every day for just over two months. Well you already know the answer to that…I could be awesome!

He went on to tell me that over the course of just five years I would have invested the equivalent of 1825 hours of focus on whatever I desired to accomplish in my life.

Imagine for a minute how incredible you could become at anything you did for one hour each day for the next year.

How physically fit could you get? How much more love could you give and receive? How much more money could you earn?

Let me suggest that one hour is a small price to pay in comparison to the payoff.

Just one hour each day may just be the razor’s edge you need to really get the results you want in your life.

For me the decision was easy. I have been studying human potential and the mind for over 20 years. Each time I think I’m getting a good handle on it, I am gently reminded of how much there is to observe and learn.

Is getting what you want in life worth one hour a day? I certainly hope so.

Regardless of the success I have achieved in my life, I still manage to set aside my hour to read motivational stories or listen to inspirational people. They are the fuel for my mind and it keeps me learning and yearning for more.

Please adopt an hour a day for yourself!

Pick one area of your life that you want to improve and commit the next 90 days to that one thing.

I assure you that the results you achieve will be well worth the decision!

And remember…you can’t get out of this life more than you put into it.

As many of you know, our daughter takes circus arts classes in a local program here.  She LOVES her classes and they have been very good for her both physically and mentally. 

But like many things that are important in our lives, it has come with challenges.  I don’t mean the physical challenges.  Certainly they have been there too, but I mean the challenges from others who don’t see the purpose or value in doing certain tasks.  This has been the case for our daughter as well, as she has endured teasing by her peers and people minimizing her dreams.  As we see it happen so often with anyone who has a dream others can’t understand.

But one of the things I have pounded into her head is that your dreams are YOUR dreams and you can’t allow anyone to take that away from you.  She has heard this over and over again - and seen how I have worked to make my dreams come true in spite of challenges that arise.

Well yesterday she came home from school and has said she had written a poem and needed to go to www.Wordle.com  This site takes your poem and turns it into a word collage.  So after seeing the collage I asked if I could read her poem.  Here it is (with her permission.)

Never shall I forget, the green dome hidden in the woods of Saint Paul, where all your worries would just go away for a moment.

Never shall I forget, the faces and feelings everyone showed when they saw your face every day.

Never shall I forget, how the people who weren’t your friends at school treated you differently.

Never shall I forget, what people said, how cruel they were to you just before you could explain.

Never shall I forget, the gloomy weather, the feeling as if a dark cloud was following me.

Never shall I forget, how sad I felt every time someone said I was a freak or all those other cruel names that didn’t really mean anything anyways, and how I would cry to my parents as if it was my last breathe, and cry almost every night wishing I didn’t have to go to school the next day and face all those mean people.

Never shall I forget, that no matter what they said, I would never stop dreaming.

Never shall I forget, that every day I would go to school, mask my feelings and then go to Saint Paul and just forget about everything they said, how it just disappears.

Never shall I forget as long as I live.

Never

To see the Wordle associated with her poem please visit:  http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/555568/never

Okay, that’s only my version of sitting down to watch a movie (as I had previously disclosed.) Good date make not I. At least is a movie if involved.

So I really should have titled this post - Free to… Feel the Love

Yes, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. A day of love. A day of commercialism (oops - my sarcasm surfaces once in a while.) But in the spirit of the day, I have consulted www.EverythingValentine.com which seems to have lots of good information about Valentine’s Day. They have compiled a list of the 10 Most Romantic Movies to share with your loved one (or not.) I shouldn’t confess this - I’ll probably lose readers - but out of this list I have seen exactly one of these movies (which also happens to be the number one movie.) But I’ll hang on to the list and refer to it on my next sleepless night. <smile>

But for those of you who DO enjoy a good movie, here’s the list

1- Casablanca (1942). Bogart, Bergman, heroes, villains, the rediscovery of lost love, and the need to lose it again for a higher cause.

2- Notting Hill (1999). Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant star in this fairy-tale like story of syrupy sweet coincidences and love for a movie star and a regular guy. It’s a good one to see when you want to be reminded how sweet it is to like someone. Not to mention the wonderful co-stars that liven up the sweetness.

3- It Happened One Night (1934). Cynical reporter Clark Gable tracks down, then joins up with, spoiled runaway heiress Claudette Colbert. While on the road together, they slowly become attached to one another.

4- Romeo and Juliet (1968). Franco Zeffirelli brought Sixties “relevance” to Shakespeare’s tale in this, the first film version of the story to cast teenage actors (Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting) as the Bard’s teen star-crossed lovers. Baz Luhrmann took a similar tack in his 1996 music-video version with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

5- West Side Story (1961). Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim had already done a “street-wise” Romeo and Juliet in their late-’50s stage musical, put on film by director Robert Wise and set among N.Y.C. street toughs.

6- French Kiss (1995). Meg Ryan is a girl whose fiancee, Timothy Hutton, has left her for a French beauty, all because she was afraid to fly. Well, she goes to France to get her man back, but meets her opposite in Kevin Kline. Needless to say, mishaps lead to a happy ending. Very romantic, very French.

7- Like Water For Chocolate (1993). Sensual and amazing. The story of a woman who is denied the man she wants, but makes up for it in her cooking. This foreign film will really get you in the Valentine mood.

8- A Room With a View (1986). The total M and I (Merchant and Ivory) experience. Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands show us the uptight Victorian era that could stifle love. Lovely and British, a wonderful example of how little it takes to fall in love.

9- The Princess Bride (1987). A light hearted fairy-tale that was a great wit. Something for everyone: action, fighting, heroes, villians, damsels in distress, magic and monsters. A movie you can watch any time of year.

10- Gone with the Wind (1939). This is major production, technicolor romance at it’s finest. Based on a terrific book, this epic tale has the most memorable characters of all time. Every woman has a bit of Scarlett O’Hara inside just bursting to come out.

Enjoy the flicks. Don’t forget the popcorn - it’s the best part. And by all means have a Happy Valentine’s Day and feel the love everyday not just on Feb. 14th.

Okay, I have tried to be good. But I am done. I am laying the cards on the table for you to decide. Where, exactly, have our collective brains vanished? At what point in history did we decide that when someone makes a bad choice or a “mistake” we should just open the wallet and forget about it?

First we have the bailout - which you KNOW my feelings about that. Not that I don’t think we seriously need it. Just the reasons we need it irritate me. And the fact that the “fat cats” are enjoying elaborate parties and spa days while I work 7 days a week so I can help pay THEIR bill.

Now we have poor (literally) Nadya Suleman. Mother of 14 children - 3 of whom we know are disabled and it is likely that at least a couple of the newborns (per Drs. interviews) will have disabilities. That in itself is sad. These children will face challenges their whole lives. Now it’s not really the financial help this family will receive that is all that disturbing. I am a social worker at heart and would always advocate for the health and welfare of these children. What is disturbing is the presumption - by Nadya, by the Infertility Dr. who knew Nadya had 6 children, no home of her own and no employment, by the hospital who used the birth of these babies as a publicity stunt - that the people of the USA will take care of it.

We are a giving people and that’s really a good thing. But at what point are we just chumps? And how DO you draw the limit? If we said no way to the bailout we would be in serious (make that more serious) economic straits. If we said no way to Nadya, the hospital and the Drs. we would have a large, homeless family in which the children would likely receive no consistent education (you can see that cycle repeating already can’t you?)

Well, maybe I should just jump on the band wagon before it’s a runaway train. My credit card payments are due but I would prefer to go on vacation. Could somebody take care of those for me please? And while you are at it, feel free to leave your condo keys under the mat so I have a place to stay for free. Thanks - oh wait - I forgot - nobody says thanks.

I woke up this morning at 2:30 am. I did not set the alarm. I did not have to get up for a reason like…taking the dog out or using the bathroom. But I did lay there…and lay there…and lay there…you get the idea. Finally at 3:50 I had decided I might as well get up. After scanning the TV options (just over 300 infomercials - okay, I exaggerate, but not much) I decided to watch White Men Can’t Jump. It’s a good enough movie and seriously, what is one supposed to do at 4:00 am?

I, like the rest of the world, occasionally have difficulty sleeping. So on a whim, I decided to check out some sleep facts.

According to www.LucidDreaming.com,

• Dolphins use only half their brain to sleep at any given time. They need to keep half “awake” so they can surface to the water!
• Untreated Sleep Apnea causes more than 500,000 car accidents every year.
• Sleep loss of 4 hours or more is the equivalent of being drunk with a .10% blood alcohol level. (Uh oh.)
• 15% of people sleep walk.
• There is such as thing as Sleep Debt. (Can we have a bailout?) Sleep Debt occurs when sleepless nights occur over consecutive nights.
• 30-40% of the population report that they have sleep problems at some time within a year.

We have all heard that sleep deprivation can have mild or even catastrophic consequences. For one, a person is just tired. But sleep difficulty can cause obesity, hypertension, it can impair your reaction time and can cause fatal accidents. And difficulty typing (I know this first hand.)

So how do we avoid sleep issues or resolve them if we are already dealing with them? Experts will tell you to get regular exercise, eat balanced meals, blah, blah, blah.

To heck with that! First of all, who has time for regular exercise and balanced meals? Geez, there are days that getting A meal is a bonus. Healthy - no. Reality - yes. My personal solution? Grab a glass of herbal tea - or a glass of wine and flip on the TV. It is my guaranteed remedy for sleep. After almost 2 hours awake this morning, I turned White Men Can’t Jump on and was sleeping like a baby within 20 minutes. Ah….rest.

Side note: Don’t invite me to the movies (unless I am in need of a good nap!)