On any given day, but a LOT on most Monday mornings, you can look in your social media feeds and see quite the variety of posts about motivation. I’m guilty. I supply some of them. I also look through them and this morning I happened to notice just how many of them focus on outlook. When something that wasn’t part of your original plan happens, do you view it as an obstacle? Or an opportunity? (more…)

One of my all-time favorite motivational quotes is: “I WILL do today what others WON’T so that I CAN do tomorrow what others CAN’T.” What does that mean? Think about it a moment. It means that what we do today can either help us prepare to make greater accomplishments tomorrow or we can do less (or nothing) and be less prepared for tomorrow’s challenges. With that in mind, the potential of “tomorrow” can be motivation for today, or it can be consolation depending on how the day works out. All too often, though, tomorrow is used as an excuse NOT to accomplish something today. (more…)

“It’s better to be prepared and not have an opportunity, rather than missing an opportunity because you weren’t prepared for it.” – Les Brown.

That struck a chord with me when I heard it while watching a short video of Mr. Brown that I found in my morning social media feeds. It immediately made me remember times in my past where I prepared for… something, even though that “something” wasn’t on any immediate horizon. It made me see opportunities I was able to take advantage of, and that some of my coworkers had taken advantage of, simply because we were able to when the time arose; when the opportunity presented itself. It also reminds me of a statement made by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: “When you walk up to opportunity’s door… don’t knock on it. Kick that bitch in, smile and introduce yourself.” (more…)

I remember being taught as a boy, “Opportunity often only knocks once.  Be sure to open the door.”  I also remember thinking, in such a childish way, “Cool!  Opportunity’s going to come to me. I don’t have to seek it out.”  Of course, as I got older, it was explained to me and I learned through experience, quite often you have to MAKE your own opportunity; it doesn’t come looking for you.  If it does, you’re damned foolish if you simply ignore it.  That all said, I recently came across a different perspective on this opportunity philosophy and it changes the outlook from opportunity knocking on YOUR door, to YOU approaching opportunity’s door.  It’s a small adjustment; one that changes the level of control you hold.  Then it goes one step further: Don’t just knock. Kick the door in, smile and introduce yourself!

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Yesterday evening (as I type this) I had a conversation with my oldest son about choices we make in life and how they shape our future.  Of course, we can only guess and/or assume how our future will change when we’re making those choices.  In the future we can look back and see the results of our choices and decide whether or not we regret any of our decisions.  He is (currently) blessed, as am I, with the reality that our PRESENT – the current conditions and circumstances of our lives – are pretty darned good; and we’re smart enough to realize that if we traveled back and changed any decision or choice, we may well rob ourselves of something in our current day to day life.  That recognized, we also agreed that there are those times when we don’t do something we might want to do and our reason(s) for not doing it could include cost, time, fear, etc.  Those are the “regrets” this piece is about.

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