Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round, or listened to rain slapping the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight, or gazed at the sun fading into the night? You better slow down, don't dance so fast, time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly, When you ask "How are you?", do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, with the next hundred chores running through your head? You better slow down, don't dance so fast, time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow, and in your haste not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die, 'cause you never had time to call and say "hi"? You better slow down, don't dance so fast, time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, it's like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race, so take it slower, hear the music before the song is over.

Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86,400; carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!

Well, everyone has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!

 FEAR

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.

 PLANNING

Make your mold. The best flux in the world
will not make a usable shape
unless you have a mold to pour it in.

 PERCEPTION

What happens is not as important
as how you react to what happens.

 ATTITUDE

It's how you deal with failure
that determines how you achieve success.

 KINDNESS

Kindness is more than deeds.
It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch.
It is anything that lifts another person.

 TALENT

Everyone has talent.
What is rare is the courage
to follow the talent
to the dark place where it leads.

 BRAGGING

There is also this benefit in brag,
that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal.
Humor him by all means, draw it all out,
and hold him to it.

ORIGINALITY

It's been very important throughout my career
that I've met all the guys I've copied,
because at each stage they've said,
"Don't play like me, play like you."

OBSTACLES

Each handicap is like a hurdle in a steeplechase,
and when you ride up to it,
if you throw your heart over,
the horse will go along too.

 TRUTH

To be persuasive, we must be believable.
To be believable, we must be credible.
To be credible, we must be truthful.

 PERCEPTION

What happens is not as important
as how you react to what happens.

 MONEY

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex.
You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it
and thought of other things if you did.

 MISTAKES

If I had my life to live again.
I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

 GIVING

It is possible to give without loving,
but it is impossible to love without giving.

 ENCOURAGEMENT

Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble
the world knows nothing about,
need only a bit of praise or encouragement --
and we will make the goal.

 WORRY

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow;
it empties today of its strength.

 FANATICISM

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts
when you have forgotten your aim.

 ENTHUSIASM

Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world.
It beats money, power and influence.

 RESTLESSNESS

Restlessness is discontent
and discontent is the first necessity of progress.
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man
and I will show you a failure.

 EXAMPLE

You train people how to treat you
by how you treat yourself.

 TRYING

Try not.
Do, or do not.
There is no try.

 CHARACTER

Be more concerned with your character
than with your reputation.
Your character is what you really are
while your reputation is merely
what others think you are.

 WORRY

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow;
it empties today of its strength.

 VISUALIZATION

I've discovered that numerous peak performers
use the skill of mental rehearsal of visualization.
They mentally run through important events
before they happen.

 OBSTACLES

As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.

 HONOR

Honor is like an island,
rugged and without a beach;
once we have left it,
we can never return.

 GROWTH

The minute a man ceases to grow,
no matter what his years,
that minute he begins to be old.

 DIRECTION

The great thing in the world
is not so much where we stand,
as in what direction we are moving.

 ANGER

In a controversy, the instant we feel anger
we have already ceased striving for the truth,
and have begun striving for ourselves.

 OPTIMISM

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties
of his opportunities
and an optimist is one
who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

 ORIGINALITY

The man with a new idea is a crank
until the idea succeeds.

 PURPOSE

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

 VALUE

Try not to become a man of success
but rather try to become a man of value.

 PERCEPTION

What happens is not as important
as how you react to what happens.

 ADVERSITY

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps
instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not
only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every
conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral
energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right
spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

 OPPORTUNITY

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity.
The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

 NEIGHBORS

It is your business
when the wall next door
catches fire.

 LUCK

All of us have bad luck and good luck.
The man who persists through the bad luck --
who keeps right on going --
is the man who is there when the good luck comes --
and is ready to receive it.

 LOVE

Love 'em for what they are
and forgive 'em for what they ain't.

 GIVING

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches
to conceive how others can be in want.

 HAPPINESS

Just think how happy you would be
if you lost everything you have right now,
and then got it back again.

 IDEAS

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.
If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

 HUMILITY

Many people believe that humility is the opposite of pride,
when, in fact, it is a point of equilibrium.
The opposite of pride is actually a lack of self esteem.
A humble person is totally different from
a person who cannot recognize and appreciate himself
as part of this worlds marvels.

 LUCK

All of us have bad luck and good luck.
The man who persists through the bad luck --
who keeps right on going --
is the man who is there when the good luck comes --
and is ready to receive it.

 MOTIVATION

Nobody motivates today's workers.
If it doesn't come from within,
it doesn't come.
Fun helps remove the barriers
that allow people to motivate themselves.

 GAIN

For everything you have missed,
you have gained something else;
and for everything you gain,
you lose something else.

 INSULTS

You will find that silence or very gentle words
are the most exquisite revenge for insult.

 OBSTACLES

As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.

 MANAGEMENT

As a manager the important thing is
not what happens when you are there,
but what happens when you are not there.

 GAIN

For everything you have missed,
you have gained something else;
and for everything you gain,
you lose something else.

 FORTUNE

Fortune is like the market,
where, many times,
if you can stay a little,
the price will fall.

 CONSEQUENCES

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with
some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain
of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The
transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is
often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight
cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil
may at some future period bring forth good; and good may
bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.

 COMMITTMENT

Unless commitment is made,
there are only promises and hopes;
but no plans.

 ATTITUDE

Ability is what you're capable of doing.
Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it.

 YOUTH

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind.
You are as old as your doubt, your fear, your despair.
The way to keep young is to keep your faith young.
Keep Your self-confidence young.
Keep your hope young.

 WHOLENESS

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth
successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole
spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or
nobody.

 PROBLEMS

The problem is not that there are problems.
The problem is expecting otherwise
and thinking that having problems is a problem.

 GIVING

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life
that no man can sincerely try to help another without
helping himself.

 CONFIDENCE

With confidence, you can reach truly amazing heights;
without confidence, even the simplest accomplishments
are beyond your grasp.

 COMMUNICATION

If you only had one phone call to make before you die,
who would you call? What would you say? Why are you waiting?

 INERTIA

All that is necessary to break the spell
of inertia and frustration is this:
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
That is the talisman, the formula,
the command of right-about-face
which turns us from failure towards success.

 APATHY

The world is a dangerous place to live;
not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

 ANGER

In a controversy the instant we feel
anger we have already ceased striving
for the truth, and have begun striving
for ourselves.

 THOUGHTS

A thought which does not result
in an action is nothing much,
and an action which does not proceed
from a thought is nothing at all.

 TENACITY

Most of the important things in the world
have been accomplished by people
who have kept on trying
when there seemed to be no hope at all.

 TEMPTATION

We usually know what we can do,
but temptation shows us who we are.

 PRACTICE

There's nothing remarkable about it.
All one has to do
is hit the right keys
at the right time
and the instrument plays itself.

 CREATIVITY

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember, amateurs built the ark.
Professionals built the Titanic.

 APPEARANCES

You and I do not see things as they are.
We see things as we are.

 ACCOMPLISHMENT

Do not be desirous of having things done quickly.
Do not look at small advantages.
Desire to have things done quickly
prevents their being done thoroughly.
Looking at small advantages
prevents great affairs from being accomplished.

SELF

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will.

PURPOSE

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

ORIGINALITY

The man with a new idea is a crank
until the idea succeeds.

OBSTACLES

Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.

BRAGGING

There is also this benefit in brag,
that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal.
Humor him by all means, draw it all out,
and hold him to it.

HONESTY

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.

RISK

Do not fear risk.
All exploration, all growth is calculated.
Without challenge people cannot reach their higher selves.
Only if we are willing to walk over the edge can we become winners.

SINCERITY

Every man alone is sincere.
At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

TRUST

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.

Faith has to do with things that are not seen, and hope with things that are not in hand.

ACTION

Letting' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back.

Self-trust is the first secret to success.

Do it big or stay in bed.

EXCEL

Do each daily task the best we can; act as though the eye of opportunity were always upon us.

SUCCESS

Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.

SUCCESS

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.

Convictions without character are quickly dissolved into mere good intentions.

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

FAILURE

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.

Optimism, unaccompanied by personal effort, is merely a state of mind, and not fruitful.

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

NOW

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

LUCK

When you work seven days a week, fourteen hours a day,
you get lucky.

LEARNING

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.

REWARD

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

TODAY

Yesterday is gone.Tomorrow has not yet come.We have only today. Let us begin.

EXCELLENCE

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

MISTAKES

People who don't make mistakes always end up working for people who do.

EXPLORE

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

PROBLEMS

I've been failing for, like, ten or eleven years.
When it turns, it'll turn.
Right now, I'm just tryin' to squeeze through a very tight financial period, get the movie out, and put my things in order.

FAILURE

You've failed many times, although you may not remember.
You fell down the first time you walked.

You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim.
Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat?

Heavy hitters, the one who hit the most home runs,
also strike out the most. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs.

R.H. Macy failed seven times
before his store in New York caught on.

Don't worry about failure.
Worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try...

CONSCIENCE

I love the person that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress,

and grow brave by reflection.
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink,

but he whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves his conduct,

will pursue his principles unto death.

MISTAKES

Many of us grow up thinking of mistakes as bad, viewing errors as evidence of fundamental incapacity.
This negative thinking pattern can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which undermines the learning process.
To maximize our learning it is essential to ask:
"How can we get the most from every mistake we make?"

Ever find yourself uptight because you are late for an appointment or deadline and are forced to wait in line in traffic, or in the check out line, or in the dentist's waiting room, or a block lone line at a popular movie? Given the fast pace of life in the 90's, pretty much everyone finds this happening all to frequently.

Here's a tip for these "waiting" times that I pulled from a book I am writing titled "How I Keep From Going Under". There are two ways to look at these "waiting" times. We can spend our time fuming, working ourselves into a tizzy about all the valuable time we're being forced to waste, and raising our blood pressure and stress level as we wait. Or, we can regard waiting as a gift of time.

With this gift of time, we could:

- develop possible solutions to personal problems
- carry a book for times like this... pull it out and read
- commit something to memory
- set goals for the remainder of the day or week
- think of something unexpected you could do to please the people you love

Instead of getting all stressed out over something you can't change, treat the situation as a gift. A gift of time. Time to do something really neat that you otherwise would not have taken the time to do.

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On that day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be stuck. Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The moth then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was the way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the moth of health.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying --lying to others and to yourself.

POSSIBILITIES

I've never met a person, I don't care what his condition, in whom I could not see possibilities.
I don't care how much a man may consider himself a failure,
I believe in him, for he can change the thing that is wrong in his life any time he is ready and prepared to do it.
Whenever he develops the desire, he can take away from his life the thing that is defeating it.
The capacity for reformation and change lies within.

Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Burn him so severely that the doctors say he'll never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham -- who set the world's one mile record in 1934. Deafen him and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, a George Washington Carver. Call him a slow learner, "retarded," and write him off as uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein. As one man summed it up: Life is about 20% in what happens to us and 80% in the way we respond to the events.

A ship was on maneuvers one night when a light appeared on the horizon. The crew followed the proper procedures for when a ship is sighted. They took a bearing, calculated the distance between the two ships and quickly transmitted a warning message:

"Have taken bearing. We are on collision course. Please bear right."
They received this message back:
"Your message is received. You bear right."

The crew notified the commanding officer because a U.S. Ship of the Line isn't normally expected to change course to accommodate others. The CO ordered the following message sent:
"We remain on collision course. This is a U.S. Ship of the Line. Please bear right."

The response came back:

"You bear right."
Angry at the lack of respect and adherence to naval protocol, the CO ordered this message:
"We are approaching situation extremis. Critical that you bear right immediately."

The response came back:

"You bear right. We are a lighthouse."

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and philosopher, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes about enjoying a good cup of tea. You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea. Only in the awareness of the present can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup. Only in the present can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate the delicacy. If you are ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea. You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.

Life is like that. If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone. You will have missed the feel, the aroma, the delicacy and beauty of life. It will seem to be speeding past you.

The past is finished. Learn from it and let it go. The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it. Worrying is worthless. When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, when you stop worrying about what might never happen, then you will be in the present moment. Then you will begin to experience joy in life.

LIFE OBSERVATIONS

It takes years to build up trust, but only seconds to destroy it.
You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you'd better know something.

Don't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.
It's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do about it.

Always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
You control your attitude or it controls you. It isn't always enough to be forgiven by others.

Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself. Your background and circumstances may have influenced who you are, but you are responsible for who you become.

Even if you do the right thing for the wrong reason, it's still the wrong thing to do.

FEAR
back to the top

It isn't real -

That shapeless, nameless thing that has you blind to the truth before your eyes and deaf to the urgings of your Heart.

It's an illusion -

A scenario played out by a hypnotized mind programmed to fail.

Break its paralyzing grip.
Heed the wisdom of your Heart.
Look it square in the eye.
Step into it and call it what it is: A lie.

INSPIRE
back to the top

Somebody said that it couldn't be done, But he with a chuckle replied

That "maybe it couldn't", but he would be one Who wouldn't say so till he tried.

So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing, That couldn't be done and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that; At least no one ever has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took of his hat, And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin Just take off your coat and go to it.
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.