Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 111). Center Street. Kindle Edition. We are heading into the holiday season.  A lot of people are going to run to overcrowded stores frantically getting things that nobody really wants.  But it was such a good deal but it really wasn’t what they wanted.  After getting it and still spending too much we’re too tired to really enjoy the season. How about your day today?  I understand the importance of the meal and of how it doesn’t just appear but maybe it isn’t what really makes this day a happy day.  Maybe it’s just being with each other.  Oh don’t stop cooking but just add that part to the celebration not the stress.  I was reading today in Luke 11 (The Message) of the first time Jesus met Mary and Martha.  Mary loved the relationship and spending time with Jesus but Martha felt the stress of all she had to do in the kitchen.  Later she interrupted J

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn:Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (p. 60). Center Street. Kindle Edition. That makes so much sense.    John said earlier in this section, “We may never know why things happen. If we focus on the why, we may never make real progress in our lives.” There is so much to learn in each and every situation.   Now if the why is something we did then knowing that can help us not to do it again.   How can I not let this happen again?   But if it is a self-pity thing, why is this happening to me? then it only hinders us in our growth.   It holds us back.   How can I do better?   How can I keep from this situation again?   How can I learn the lesson that is here?   How can I get through this?   How do I make this work?  How does this work?  The how moves us forward.   So how are you doing?

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn:Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (p. 59). Center Street. Kindle Edition. And it also as John says, “is a recipe for continued failure.” What about you and the negative situation you are in?   Are you a victim, ready to blame someone else for the problem or are you taking responsibility and heading into solving the problem?   You understand that being a victim is a choice, a choice for continued failure.   Of course for some that is the way they hopefully get attention but it is negative attention. “Responsibility” as John says earlier in this chapter, “is the most important ability that a person can possess.”   It is the choice that can either make or break your life.   The choice to be a victim totally gives up your choice of doing what you can do.   It gives control of your life to circumstance and to others. It was said in Las Vegas where I li

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn:Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (p. 52). Center Street. Kindle Edition. He continues, “So does getting angry and yelling or taking it out on loved ones.”   But that is what we do so many times when a problem comes up.   And it doesn’t get better, it gets worse.   For sure it doesn’t go away. So stop and accept that there is a problem.   Get your emotions in check so you can do something about it.   Take a moment and think about what the problem is and why it is a problem and then start working on solving it. But the key is you can’t solve it by denying it.   So what is the problem you are denying isn’t there?

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn: Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (Kindle Locations 697-698). Center Street. Kindle Edition. That can be so true.  John shared that it seems that most Nobel Prize winners never did anything significant after winning the prize.  He quotes T. S. Eliot, “The Nobel is a ticket to one’s own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it.” I remember watching young kids back in Little League who had developed before the other boys so they were the stars at that time.  And I saw some of the other kids who had to work harder pass those kids as they got older because they had to work for their success and it paid off.  Harvey Penick the great Hall of Fame golf teacher in his Little Red Book tells of how you should not focus on your last shot.  If it was really good you will mess up on the next one.  You must continue to focus a head. Paul in the Bible says tha

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn:Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (Kindle Location 630). Center Street. Kindle Edition. I have a lot of phrases that I say over and over that help me but I’m sure my family gets tired of hearing.   A couple phrases from my dad were, “No paper is so thin that it doesn’t have two sides to it.”   Another is, “A short pencil is better than a long memory.” Some others that I say are, “A cinch by the inch and hard by the yard” and then “An excuse is a skin of a reason, stuffed with a lie.”    Excuses, excuses, “It’s easier to go from failure to success that it is from excuses to success.”   So many people get stuck in their life because of their excuses.   Of course there is some truth in every excuse but there are also lies that keep you from going forward.   Now failure is tough, it really is but it is not the end.   There is always something to be lea