Count your many blessings, name them one by one

My father told me the following story and asked me to always remember it esp during tough times.

Once upon a time, an angel and his follower went to a small town.  It was  late night and raining so they asked someone in the town for shelter. That person gave them shelter but  was rude and put them in his basement which was leaking and it was very cold there. Angel repaired the basement, thanked the man for providing shelter and left in the morning.Another day, angel and his follower went to some other town and it started raining again.

They again asked someone for shelter. This time, the host was a poor man and had a very small house. He offered his only room to the angel and his follower and he himself slept outside the room. Next morning angle’s follower saw that the poor man’s cow who was the only source of income was dead. Angel’s follower was so confused. He asked the angel ” The other man was so rude to you still you repaired his basement and his poor man was so good to you still you killed his only source of income??”. Angle replied “This poor man was destined to die today but because of his good deeds, he was saved and instead his cow was taken. Its all fair in this system. We all reap what we sow”———–When we all face tough situations, we get so angry and feel so bad for what happened without realizing that it could have been worse. I personally believe that God does the best he can and rest we all get what we sow. Two things I learned from this story:

• Irrespective of what we have done in the past and what we are doing now, the best way to make things BETTER is to start doing good karma from this moment on.
• Always count your blessings and feel grateful because things could have been worse

Just try this exercise of writing every small thing God has given you and you will have  a smile on your face and joy in your heart for sure.Life is beautiful. Be grateful for the life you have been given!

 

love is all you need

Thoughts to live by

1. You have to want it.
2. You have to make it a priority.
3. Eliminate old ways and create new and better ways.
4. Start doing good things to yourself and for yourself.
5. Plan your work.
6. Record your progress.
7. Share your success.
8. Think great.
9. Be great.
10. There are no limits to greatness.

Wisdom Quotes and Wisdom Sayings

• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
• It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
• A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
• Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
• In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.
• The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
• By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
• Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
• The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.
• The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
• Angry people are not always wise.
• God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.
• Never, never, never give in!
• Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens

Great Quotations for the Ages

Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago. – Samuel Smiles

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.- Aristotle

You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result. – Mahatma Gandhi

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. – Albert Einstein

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, and not as they are said to be. – George Bernard Shaw

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. – Mark Twain

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. – Edgar Allen Poe

Be led by reason. – Greek Proverb

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

You must be the change you wish to see in the world – .Mahatma Gandi

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. – Michael Corleone, in The Godfather

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Andre Gide

I buy when other people are selling. – J. Paul Getty

What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time. – H. W. Shaw (Josh Billings)

I dreamed a thousand new paths…I woke and walked my old one. – Chinese Proverb 

It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change. – Mignon McLaughlin

 

 

 It is common sense to take a method and try it.  If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.  – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.  – Ralph Marston

Within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live. – Joseph Epstein

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own. – Benjamin Disraeli

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. – Henry David Thoreau

Be absolutely determined to enjoy what you do. – Gerry Sikorski

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. – Joseph Campbell

Learn by practice. – Martha Graham

You don’t just stumble into the future. You create your own future. – Roger Smith

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. – William Makepeace Thackeray

We need to listen to one another.  – Chaim Potok

You’ve got to say, “I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it.” It’s called perseverance. – Lee Iacocca

 My favorite quote is “Life is too short to be little,” written by israeli. Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. – Andre Maurois

You have brains…

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…

Dr. Seuss

Imperfection is…

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Marilyn Monroe

I am enough of …

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Albert Einstein

Stop wishing and Start doing!

Positive Thinking

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply… I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

Inspirational and Motivational selection of my favorite quotes!

Hopefully You’ll like them, as well as the design they are in 😉

 

YOU CAN!!!!

Gifts from the heart

 

According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy heart.

Later, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student challenged his teacher: “Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend to like it?”

The teacher replied, “You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter.”

I think we understand this lesson best when we receive innocent gifts of love from young children. Whether it’s a ceramic tray or a macaroni bracelet, the natural and proper response is appreciation and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea within the gift.

Gratitude doesn’t always come naturally. Unfortunately, most children and many adults value only the thing given rather than the feeling embodied in it. We should remind ourselves and teach our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude. After all, gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.

Be happy (a true story)

 

Around twenty years ago I was living in Seattle and going through hard times. I could not find satisfying work and I found this especially difficult as I had a lot of experience and a Masters degree.

To my shame I was driving a school bus to make ends meet and living with friends. I had lost my apartment. I had been through five interviews with a company and one day between bus runs they called to say I did not get the job. I went to the bus barn like a zombie of disappointment.

Later that afternoon, while doing my rounds through a quiet suburban neighborhood I had an inner wave – like a primal scream – arise from deep inside me and I thought “Why has my life become so hard?” “Give me a sign, I asked… a physical sign – not some inner voice type of thing.”

Immediately after this internal scream I pulled the bus over to drop off a little girl and as she passed she handed me an earring saying I should keep it in case somebody claimed it. The earring was stamped metal, painted black and said ‘BE HAPPY’.

At first I got angry – yeah, yeah, I thought. Then it hit me. I had been putting all of my energies into what was wrong with my life rather than what was right! I decided then and there to make a list of 50 things I was grateful for.

At first it was hard, then it got easier. One day I decided to up it to 75. That night there was a phone call for me at my friend’s house from a lady who was a manager at a large hospital. About a year earlier I had submitted a syllabus to a community college to teach a course on stress management. (Yup, you heard me. 😉 She asked me if I would do a one-day seminar for 200 hospital workers. I said yes and got the job.

My day with the hospital workers went very well. I got a standing ovation and many more days of work. To this day I KNOW that it was because I changed my attitude to gratitude.

Incidentally, the day after I found the earring the girl asked me if anyone had claimed it. I told her no and she said “I guess it was meant for you then.”

I spent the next year conducting training workshops all around the Seattle area and then decided to risk everything and go back to Scotland where I had lived previously. I closed my one man business, bought a plane ticket and got a six month visa from immigration. One month later I met my wonderful English wife and best friend of 15 years now. We live in a small beautiful cottage, two miles from a paved road in the highlands of Scotland.

‘THE ONLY ATTITUDE IS GRATITUDE’ has been my motto for years now and yes, it completely changed my life.

Start with yourself

 

When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But, it too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed my self first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, It is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Inspiring

 

Inspiration

 

Trust, responsibilities and motivation

 

In the economical world, where the competitions become harder, the key factor maintaining companies in a leadership position, is the performance level. Performances of companies or organizations are related to the motivation of the personnel. The motivation is generated by different factors.

First, it is important that people have a clear idea about the content of their function, their mission, and have clearly defined objectives, mid and long-term career perspectives. This is a reason why the recruiting process is a key factor contributing to a potential long-term collaboration. Indeed, the content of the function and the targets have to match with the employee expectations. A recent study performed in the Belgian work market shows that people are according more importance to challenges and career evolutions perspectives than to the salary packages.

A second point is the trust given by the management to the employee. When people are trusted, they have the feeling that management believes in them and about their capacity to work autonomously. I remember some years ago, I was working as accountant for an American company. My boss was on holiday, and we had to face a serious trouble with the IT during an upgrade process. A part of the data’s was lost because the backup systems did not work properly. Two weeks of data were lost, and the last accounting monthly closing disappeared. I contacted a controller at the head quarter in the U.S. I explained the situation, and he told me that I would have a better overview of the situation than him, and that if it was necessary, I had to look for temp people in order to come back to a normal situation. Fortunately, an IT company where we sent the hard disks retrieved the data and we were back to the normal. The instruction of the controller was a real challenge for me, but also an evidence that he was convinced that I would be able to manage the situation. This trust evidence was a source of motivation for me. If people believe in you, you believe in yourself and are motivated to face challenges and take responsibilities. But it is obvious that we have to respect the given trust and the merit of trust is a daily exercise.

A third point is to give responsibilities to the people. When you trust on them and when you know that they can work on an autonomous way, then you can delegate tasks and responsibilities, which is a key point in term of management. We are used to say that if somebody is able to perform a task or a process at around 75%, then you have to delegate it. By delegating, you are giving higher responsibilities to the people, and showing that you trust on his capabilities. You offer him also an opportunity to learn and to increase his capacities and competences.

Recognition of the work done is another important factor of motivation. We know that successful project achievement can only be done by a hard contribution from each member involved in the project. Most of the biggest challenges are achieved by hard work provided by the project team. More than a bonus or a salary increase, the recognition and the feedback about the provided work is important to motivate people.

And what about team spirit? People can only give the best of themselves, if they are working within a team where members are moved by team spirit and by the will to reach first the common goal. When people are working together and want to achieve the common goal, it means that everybody can achieve his own goal related to his function and contributing to the common goal success. In such way, people have the feeling to be really part of a team and of a project where their work is recognized.

All these points show that trust can generate a win-win relationship between employees and employers, between partners. Trust can increase the motivation and the will to take responsibilities. It is in fact a contract where each partner have to respect the clauses.

Give yourself permission to just be…

 

 We live in a shame based culture where we feel it necessary to hide behind false realities of who we are to please people or to gain approval to fit in.  We dress a certain way, carry ourselves a certain way, work on certain jobs, date specific people, live in particular places, drive a certain car etc… to appear the way we think others see us.  The fear of maintaining a certain image is driven by fear and no matter how much we appear to be one way or another we are tormented inside because we are not being authentically who we truly are.

You are here to live an abundant experience, but having things is not the proof of your abundance.  Abundance includes more than just the things you possess. Your wealth or lack of it have absolutely nothing to do with who you are.  You are fully abundant by birthright meaning that you are here to live an experience filled with every good thing including possessions.  That means your joy should be full. It means you have no need to hide behind a facade because you don’t have a relationship, or a job, or feel you are missing something that others would think you are supposed to have.  You have exactly what you are supposed to have according to what you believe.

What you own and possess do not make you who you are.  Who you date and where you live do not make you who you are.  Nothing that you can attain can make you who you are.  No amount of airs or pretense, covers of clothing, beauty masking, possessions and money can make you who you are. You were born exactly as who you ARE to BE.  You were created as GREATNESS and who you are has absolutely nothing to do with your educational level, who you date, what job you have or how much money you spend on your clothes and your cars. You were created as who you are, and your job now is to simply learn to BE just that!

Your possessions and accomplishments are just things. You are not authentically BEING YOU when you lead with what you have or buy to cover what you don’t.  When you are not living authentically you are living in fear of anyone discovering you don’t believe in yourself.  You have chosen to cover your fear with things, which prevents you from LIVING in YOUR TRUTH.

Living in your Truth means you are confident in who you are and have great love for yourself.  Living your Truth means you realize your shortcomings and know that they are simply part of the Divine Design that guides you into higher awareness of who you are. Living Your Truth means you are free of the “keep up with the Jones” mentality and living your L.I.F.E. in the fullness of your own light.

You do not have to do anything in particular, in any particular way to prove who you are.  You do not have to be better than anyone else because there is only one you.  So who can you be better than?  There can be no competition with anyone except for yourself because the only one you are here to prove more to is YOU.  You are here to simply JUST BE.  To just BE exactly who you are and allow yourself to grow into the full awareness of your own truth.

Other people will only see the facade you construct.  Contrary to thought, they can also see how afraid and scared you are behind all the smoke screens of clothing, cars, education and possessions that you may attempt to lead with. This does not mean you should not have these things.  It means you place the value where it is supposed to be placed; on yourself, not on accomplishments and things.

Spirit is not interested in competition.  Spirit does not compete.  IT is always the ONLY ONE!  There is no thing on this planet, not even evil, that Spirit competes with.   So if you are Spirit in human flesh, who are you competing with to be number ONE when we are all ONE with the ONLY ONE?

You are here to JUST BE the ONE YOU!  It is time for you to give yourself permission to BE DIVINE.  It is time to give yourself permission to know that it is OK to stumble and fall.  It is time to give yourself permission to be upset and disappointed, to be sad and fearful.  It is time to give yourself permission to be broke or to be wealthy.  It is time to give yourself permission to live L.I.F.E. in the fullness of every moment knowing that whatever experience you are living, you do not have to hide it from the world.  You have to LIVE IT!  Experience IT! If it is not what you want it to be, you have to know that it is teaching you exactly who you are so you can sit back and simply JUST BE!