To be Humble

A few years ago I was reading a book on success. As I read I took many interesting points, there were many thoughts to take away and it definitely gave me inspiration to make some changes in my life. One thing I found interesting was a discussion about managing your time, one point in this was to pay someone else to do basic jobs. The directive was if you could pay someone else less an hour to complete the job then you are paid in your own job, then it was not worth your time and you should hire someone else to complete the work. The examples they used were around mowing the lawn, house hold chores and basic daily activity. At the time I nodded to myself and said I can see that making sense.

The other day I was folding laundry and a thought hit me. We should always take the time to do the basic jobs, these basic jobs keep us on the ground, they keep us humble. Once we start paying someone else to complete all the basic chores in our life we start becoming disconnected with the basic aspects of life. We start to place ourselves above those that are paid to complete those job. In the end though we are all human, no matter our title or our paycheck we are all people and we are all basic creatures. We must take the time to keep ourselves humble, and taking the time to complete the basic chores of life is a simple way to do this.

As we engage in these chores and they become routine it also gives us time to think, working on these chores it is also easy to reflect, reflect on the basics of life. As I fold my little girls pants I smile looking at how small they are... and then realize how much bigger they are then her little sisters, she has grown so much. As I mow the lawn I think back to being a child myself and mowing my parents lawn, I think to how hard my wife works to keep our lawn looking amazing. My mind has time to settle, let go of the stress of work and life and glance over life. I let myself settle into the chore and release the other aspect of life for the 20 minutes or hour, in some ways it is a form of meditation. Either way it reminds me of the little things in life and keeps me humble.

Motivate, Inspire and find your focus. 

Positively.... Spun!

As I sort through the world, I look for the sunlight, I look for the warmth that comes with happiness and positive thoughts. As I look around with this thought another old phrase comes to me, "actions are stronger then words," so now I think to myself I need to look for positive action, positive movement in the right direction. Then I stop, sun beaming down on my and my mood lifting by the second, I cannot define myself by the thoughts, words and actions of others. As they say I need to be the change. I need to be positive, act positive and think positive. If words and actions of others don't directly impact me then I need to leave them to themselves.

When each of us focus on being positive ourselves and spread a positive mood we are making change. Smiles are contagious. When we see something that frustrates us we cannot dwell on it, we need to avoid commenting, if anything offer a positive thought or action. We so often continue to say how positive we are but are commenting on how negative something was, but we think we feel better because "we were the positive one!" Well I ask how are we being positive when we are taking the time to spread the negative action. Drop it, walk away don't carry it with you!

So today lets step forward finding the silver lining. Commit to only focus on the positive today, and start to build this habit. Try to make three people smile and you are doing something right. Try to make 2 people laugh, you have helped them through the day. Be there to help stop one persons tears and turn it to a smile you are feeling success.

Motivate, inspire and find your focus!

Make it Perfect.

I fight, I struggle, its not right, I cannot present this, I cannot move forward... Its NOT PERFECT!! I struggle day in, day out looking for perfection, wanting everything just to click together to look at my work, look at my life and go, wow I couldn't have done anything better!....

Over the years I have broke down many times trying to find this perfection, slipping back into this world of missing my target. I have found myself alone in groups of people, drifting through life in a dark cloud worried that someone will notice that I am not perfect, that I have flaws. I smile and nod, act strong but inside feel inadequate. These are my feelings and not to be part of the outside world and I try to never let anyone see them... That is impossible, just like perfection. Someone is always going to see through a façade if you live within one, you hope it is someone that loves you and will offer support but that is not always the case, and those are the days one live in fear of...

One cannot live in fear, one cannot worry day in and day out and one will always look back and see something they could have done better. One must find the strength so see imperfection as a stepping stone to improvement, just another lesson in this amazing life we live.

As I look around the world I find one thing, those who demonstrate success always appear to achieve perfection, but with a bit of looking one can see that they rarely do achieve perfection. What they do is accept what is around them as perfect in the moment. They do not react to flaws, they work with them, they don't throw their arms in the air and walk away, they stand back look around with pride and accept everything as perfection within the moment. They know there are flaws, and they take note for the future, they fix anything that may actually cause a problem in the moment, but if it can be brought in to look like it is part of the moment and will not create an issue later they roll with it and accept it as perfect within the moment.

The challenge many of us have is not a lack of perfection, it is the stress and worry we create by trying to achieve perfection and never seeing that it is all around us. We must always strive for the next level, always push harder for happiness and whatever our vision of success is, and we must always strive for perfection. This is not a bad thing as long as when we strive for these things we will accept the imperfections as part of our life, maybe something to work on, definitely not something to break us. We need to focus on bettering ourselves and those around us, and when we recognize that growth is the greatest sign of perfection we will feel proud and others will see our pride. They will look at us and wonder how we achieve such perfection, we will become the inspiration and we will grow.

We must take a moment every day and see the perfection that is all around us, see how many things we have to inspire us and motivate us. We all have perfection in the things around us, whether it is a moment of silence that brings a smile to our face, a hug from a child or a job well done that we can reflect on just how well we have done.
Motivate, Inspire and find your Focus.

Dreams come true

All our life we strive for your dreams, we push to see them come true. For so many they always seem so far away that we lose hope, we lose desire and motivation. But for me, I see now my dreams are coming true, I see that many dreams are in my hands. I look at my beautiful wife, my amazing kids and a job I love.... Just a year ago I had most of this but could not see it. The day we stop and look around, really look at what we have and see are dreams are coming true is the day life becomes amazing. Now lets stop for a second, I am not bragging, I am not saying I have won the 649, I am saying I see life different. Dreams are coming true for all of us once we take the time to see them, Dreams come true in all sizes and shapes, it may not always look like we thought it would, it may seem extremely simple, but when you look in the eyes of your loved one, look around at your friends, hold your child, this is a dream, a dream we all had to be loved, a dream to be accepted. When we look at the walls around us, the fact that we get a pay cheque these are dreams coming true. When we feel this joy, this success, we can now help others achieve their dreams, when we focus on someone else's dreams we then feel greater success, greater joy. There is no feeling like making dreams for others come true, this should be a dream for all of us. When we accept that our dreams are coming true and help create dreams for others we start to build a circle of success and joy, dreams become more achievable, people want to help you reach your bigger dreams and life becomes amazing. Once we accept and love what we have we start to see the biggest dream any of us could have come true and that is happiness. Don't stop dreaming, don't stop setting bigger dreams and shooting for the moon but never stop seeing that your dreams are coming true all around you and life is amazing no matter how hard it seems, no matter how low we are, there is always something to be happy about and a dream coming true. Smile and the sun and dream of the stars. Motivate, Inspire and find your Focus.

To rest the mind work the body

I had been sitting for two days, reading intently feeling inspiration as I burned through my new book. Such clear thoughts, connections being made with work and family life. I love digging into a book that click that inspires and creates focus points... Especially when I can do it sprawled out in the sun with a drink in my hand... But something isn't right yet, my mind is still in gear I haven't let go yet, I am relaxed but have not let go. What is it, why am I not shutting my mind off, I switch books, some good fiction.... Still not letting go... I am sitting listening to music book and the ground lost in my thoughts when I hear a call for water polo! I jump up, why not I need something and have enjoyed water polo before. A casual game starts, we have a good group, all having fun and all working hard. My heart rate is up, focus is on the game. We laugh, we cheer, we course in jest when the other team scores. The game wraps up we shake hands and head back to our chairs. I sit down and feel that feeling I was looking for. I am now relaxed, for 45 minutes I was engaged, mentally and physically, now I rest. It hits me, I need the physical workout the endorphins to let the stress out. It all makes sense engaging in any activity can help relax the mind, we so often think rest means sitting, yes this is the definition of at rest but to de-stress we need more. Sometimes it is a long run to be alone with our thoughts, sometimes its a team sport to draw our focus to people, and activity and away from the task on our mind. To rest the mind work the body, it works every time. Motivate, inspire and find your focus.

Exhaustion

Tonight I am exhausted, drained, wiped out. It may be this cold or it may be everything on my mind. Those moments when you feel like somethings are finally coming together and others are getting further away, the moments that the weight of the world seems to double, the moments that in this over connected world we feel so alone. And finally the moments when all those moments hit us at the same time. I keep a smile and sometime I don't feel the weight until I have that moment to myself, that moment that I suddenly have more questions than answers. There was a point that I let this feeling take me out for days sometime weeks, most people didn't notice but when someone did instead of it picking me up it crushed me even more, I couldn't believe I let someone see me at a weak point. Over the last year I have learned so much. These points cannot knock us down, we need to express ourselves, listen to those around us and work through life. We cannot dwell, we cannot worry ourselves into the ground, we have to stand up and say "I have worried enough" there is always something good out there, no matter how small, focus on it. If you can't control it then you cannot worry about it, if understanding it better will help then go learn. Motivate yourself through knowledge, whether this is knowledge that clouds do have silver linings or knowledge of the situation. When you feel alone remember that you can reach out, there is always someone who will listen, maybe not the first or second person you thought of but there is someone, and maybe it is just talking, not about the situation but just talking about the weather, about a book you read about a show you like, talk! open your mouth and talk. I am tired, I am exhausted, but I will get sleep, I will get over this cold and I will see through into another day. Motivate, inspire and find your focus.

Get Over It!

Entitlement! The world it full of it now, it is striking the young, the old, everyone. Growing up I was taught that if I wanted respect I needed to earn it, I was told to respect my elders, but from the actions of my elders I was taught to give them the benefit of the doubt but still in the end to give respect where it was earned. I probably offer more respect then many deserve but one thing I have learned in life it to get over it! I don't expect anything from anyone, I expect to work hard, to fight for what I want and that no one owes me anything. So when someone doesn't respect me, I get over it, when I don't get what I want, I get over it. I don't walk away, I don't forget that feeling, but I don't dwell on it, and I try not to be put out by it. When I observe those who are successful I always note their actions and their expectations of the world. Some say that certain people "demand respect" when they walk into a room, if you sit back and watch these people the first thing they do is offer respect. They respect themselves, they are confident and they offer respect to those around them, even those that have burned them are offered a certain level of respect. Those that have worked their way to their position of respect do not expect anything more then they can and would give someone else. They control their emotions, and don't flinch when someone tries to tare them down, the get over it. In the end those that tried to tare them down will not share in their success but they also normally don't make an effort to knock that person down. We all have a breaking point and if pushed too hard, if we see an excessive lack of respect we will push back we will knock someone down, some can do this with grace and still walk away looking strong. Those that walk away strong do not lose themselves in knocking someone else down, it is a quick step, they respect themselves and make the move without lowering themselves to someone else level and they move on. In the end we only have what we earn, this comes to money, respect, friends and more. All these things can be taken away, those that are strong and respect themselves will always get them back, those that have more then they have earned will most often lose it. In the end if we want to be happy we have to get over it, enjoy what we have earned and strive for more. Motivate, inspire and live a focused life.