Thursday, January 27, 2011

Left brain & right brain - goals & creativity

When your goals are clearly defined and intelligently set, you have, in essence, taken a major step toward programming your left brain. That frees your right brain to be its creative best – Zig Ziglar

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...practices are what create habits...

"The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires."

J. Paul Getty
1892-1976, American Oil Tycoon

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What is the ultimate measure of a man?

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” –Martin Luther King

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Let us devote our life to...

"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
1885-1967, Writer

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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Faith is...

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see
the whole staircase."
-Martin Luther King

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Unconditional Love

Love for No Reason

Through the train window, she watched the villages and vineyards of the Italian countryside go by. It was 1942 and Sussi Penzias, a young Jewish woman who'd fled Nazi Germany, was traveling alone, hoping to remain unnoticed. Since she'd arrived in Italy three years earlier, she'd been moving from place to place, staying with friends and friends of friends, hiding from the authorities. Now she was on her way to yet another safe house in a new town.

Suddenly, the door at the end of the train car swung open and two police officers came in. Sussi's heart beat wildly. They were wearing the black uniform of the Fascisti, the government police. To Sussi's horror, the policemen began making their way down the aisle, stopping at every row to examine the papers of each passenger.

Sussi knew that as soon as the policemen discovered she had no papers, she would be arrested. She was terrified she'd end up in a concentration camp, and would face unimaginable suffering and almost certain death.

The officers were getting closer, just a few rows away. There was no escape. It was only a matter of minutes before they would reach her seat. Sussi began to tremble uncontrollably, and te ars slid down her cheeks.

The man sitting next to her noticed her distress and politely asked her why she was crying.

"I'm Jewish and I have no papers," she whispered, hardly able to speak.

To her surprise, a few seconds later the man began shouting at her, "You idiot! I can't believe how stupid you are! What an imbecile!"

The police officers, hearing the commotion, stopped what they were doing and came over. "What's going on here?" one of them asked. Sussi began crying even harder.

The man turned a disgusted face to the policemen and said, "Officers, take this woman away! I have my papers, but my wife has forgotten hers! She always forgets everything. I'm so sick of her. I don't ever want to see her again!"

The officers laughed, shaking their heads at the couple's marital spat, and moved on.

With a selfless act of caring, the stranger on the train had saved Sussi's life. Sussi never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.

* * * * *

When Sussi's great-niece, Shifra, told me this story, I was in awe. I wondered, What is it that inspires someone to extend himself, even risk his life, for someone he doesn't know? The man on the train didn't help Sussi, because she'd made him a great breakfast that morning or had picked up his dry cleaning. He helped her because in that moment of heroism he was moved by an impulse of compassion and unconditional love.

I'm not talking about Hollywood or Hallmark-card kind of love, but love as a state of being-the kind of love that is limitless and doesn't ask to be returned.

Is it possible to live in that state of unconditional love all the time?

That was the question I set out to answer when I started writing my most recent book, Love for No Reason. And what I learned through my research is that each of us can grow in unconditional love, the kind of love that doesn't depend on any person or situation. Imagine loving people, not because they fill your needs or because their opinions match your own, but because you're connected to a state of pure love within yourself.

This simple but profound shift creates remarkable changes in every area of life. Instead of feeling a little hungry all the time-for love, security, more stuff, more recognition, more everything-people who are unconditionally loving feel full and complete. It affects how they show up in every moment. In fact, though a person's life might not depend on making this shift, the quality of his or her life does. When people live in unconditional love their world turns from black-and-white to dazzling Technicolor.

By Marci Shimoff. Adapted from Love for No Reason: 7 Steps to Creating a Life of Unconditional Love (Free Press, December 2010), which offers a breakthrough approach to experiencing a lasting state of unconditional love. www.TheLoveBook.com

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Lack of ability vs. Lack of commitment

“Most people who fail in their dreams fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment” - Zig Ziglar

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Fear vs. doing something...

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."

Earl Nightingale
1921-1989, Author

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What is failure?

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Henry Ford

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Over and above the required...

"No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction."

Charles Kendall Adams
1835-1902, Professor of History and Author

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Failure vs. Success

"Many of life's failures are people who do not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison

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Appreciation

"The best way to keep relationships happy, healthy, and supportive can be summed up in one word: appreciation. What you appreciate, appreciates. When we demonstrate our appreciation for the support we receive from others, it reinforces that behavior and deepens our connection to them."

Marci Shimoff
Author of Love For No Reason

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Compliments...

"It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming."

Oscar Wilde
1854-1900, Writer and Poet

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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Lessons Learned...

Lessons Learned From Merlin
Written December 23, 2003

For the last hour, I've been scuffling about my kitchen in my oversized UGG slippers (it's not a hazard as long as I don't try the stairs), whipping up a sugar cookie recipe that requires a full pound of Crisco, and wondering how in the world I'm going to write this year's Christmas novella.

For those of you who've been the recipient of said novella for the last - uh - 18 years or so, I'm well aware that last year's Armitage family Christmas letter was conspicuously missing. I just can't possibly let you down again, heaven forbid, but HOW do I explain this year's proceedings?

I'm going to start with an event that occurred today. It's not meant to be morbid and it IS directly connected to one of the more memorable events of my year, so kindly bear with me.

Today, Merlin came home to me by way of a UPS truck. If you haven't heard already, my beloved, forever shedding Great Pyrenees partner in crime these last 11 years passed on to another form of life on December 8th. He died because half of his heart had given out, proving my suspicions from his puppyhood that he, like the Whoville Grinch, had a heart that was simply several sizes too big.

After I kissed his nose for the last time, I arranged to have his ashes delivered to me, which was supposed to take a day or two at most. Instead, they called me yesterday (14 days later) to tell me they'd accidentally tried to deliver him to another family and that he was still on the UPS truck, on his way to me this time. Today, true to form, a sweating UPS truck driver sprinted to my door with Merlin solidly lodged under his arm.

As I carried Merlin (in his new state) upstairs, I couldn't help but chuckle. Nothing in the entire world caused greater gnashing-of-teeth for Merlin than the UPS truck and its attached men in brown. It was the only single thing that taunted him into trampling down fences and sprinting for blocks down rush-hour traffic streets. and here's how he ended up, lodged in the bowels of the evil incarnate monster itself (AND during the holiday season to boot) in herkyjerky, stop-and-go fashion for two full weeks.

That, my friend, is Karma. Take it from Merlin: If you're chasing after anything in life with some level of misdirected anger, that very thing will likely get the better of you in the end.

That being said, I'll give Merlin credit for helping me maintain misdirected anger over the last 11 years - even this last year. Merlin was a high-spirited, conniving creature who liked to skitter around on his tippy-toes and create instant wainscotting in every home by sliding drooly, dirty tennis balls along the wall. But he'd also follow me from room to room when he knew I was upset until I'd finally flump down and throw my arms around him. He loved me unconditionally with great warmth and a giving soul that knew no other way to be. And that was a lesson I did, indeed, learn from Merlin.

This last year didn't start well. As the New Year began, I found myself struggling with a business I didn't really like, and paying rent I didn't really want to pay anymore. So, 'round about March, Merlin and I had a talk and decided to stop with the misdirected anger and start creating a better story.

And so we did. As I say in all the stuff I write, "If you don't like the situation you're in, recognize you created it and fix it." It was time to take my own medicine. Mer and I drove all around the town of Laguna in my little convertible until we found our new home. With the move made in March to a lovely place just a block from the beach, I then tackled the not liking-my-business issue with grim determination. Fact is, if you're not doing what you love to do every day, you're cheating yourself. I knew there were too many good and exciting people out there to work with and as I focused on THIS fact, those very people started coming in the door.

It wasn't until July that I got up the nerve to e-mail the one person I wanted to work with most - my most favorite past client. This client and I have tried and failed at working together twice before, and hitting that initial "SEND" button this time around wasn't easy. Ten minutes later, however, we were on our way to working together again and now we're back on track and working quite harmoniously. I delight in what I do every day for this man's company. It's not easy and it's got its tenuous, warbly-chin, pounding headache moments. But, I delight in it. Pure and simple as that. It's supposed to be that simple, I believe.

On a connected note - I've also "happened" upon a couple solid web programming teams, both of which are quite capable of handling all my client urgencies. What I find most amazing about these web teams is that I was very solidly prepared to NOT like working with them after all the experiences I'd had through the years with not-so-great programming teams. But, again, it's all about focusing on what I want to expand, not on what I don't want to expand. Fortunately, somewhere along the way, I also realized that chasing programmers down rush-hour streets while barking my fool head off was only going to succeed in getting ME killed - yet another lesson I learned from Merlin, who always and eventually gave up the chase with a shrug.

On the opposite end of the work spectrum, I somehow ended up in an outrigger canoe club on the wild ocean this summer. How a landlocked Denver girl ever found her way to jumping in and out of a Hawaiian-style 6-man canoe is something I still can't quite fathom myself, much less explain to anyone else. My friend, Deb, a fellow spin-class victim, made me promise to try it and, after my first grudging day, I was hooked. Line and sinker, I might add.

What I thought would be something kind of friendly and social and interactive. like a bowling league on Monday nights, turned out to be a highly competitive 7-month season that entailed a minimum of 15-hours of weekly practice and full days of racing just about every weekend. I was the "stroker" - the Seat #1 gal - for my novice team and we happily and surprisingly won more than we lost. In August, we were imported into the "big girls' boats" - the gals who'd been paddling for years. In our last race of the season, we paddled 31 miles to Catalina Island in about 4 hours.

Aside from this odd sport opening up a host of uncommon injuries and new battle scars, the sport also opened up a whole new community of fun, athletic people to me - people from all walks of life who never would have crossed my path otherwise. This, coupled with my ever-lasting and loving friends in Denver and around the continent, my burgeoning group of wonderful friends from spin class, and my growing community of buddies and neighbors in this small town of Laguna Beach has made for a most enjoyable and busy year. I can't say I remember enjoying myself so much - ever.

So, here I sit on Christmas Eve's Eve with Merlin perched on my lap. (This must be nirvana for Merlin - he is, at last, a lap dog.) And his lessons are here in my head:

. If you chase after something in anger, it will find a way to bite you back.

. Be sure to follow your closest friends from room to room when you know they're upset.

. Give generously of your warmth and soul. You've got more where that came from.

. Be the first to press the "SEND" button when you haven't talked to someone in a while.

. If you're trying to chase something off because it seems like a threat to you, it might be better to stop, shrug and give it up.

. Delight in your days. It's supposed to be that simple.

. And lastly, never lose sight of your family and friends. They're the home you want to return to, even if the only way to get there is by UPS truck.

Diane Armitage

Diane Armitage - www.Armitageinc.com - is a renowned marketing writer, Internet strategist and fixer of lame web sites. When she's not coming to clients' web site rescue, she can be found writing mounds of copy for her popular blog, www.LagunaBeachBest.com and traveling/writing for entities and causes around the world. Contact her at Diane@Armitageinc.com

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Success and Failure

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they’re really not. They’re companions – the hero and the sidekick. – Laurence Shames

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I do the very best I know how...

"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything."

Abraham Lincoln
1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the United States

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A stonecutter...

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before. – Jacob Riis

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What overwhelms the world?

"Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."

Desmond Tutu
Activist and Christian Cleric

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What lies within us?

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you don't like the road you're walking...

"If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one."

Dolly Parton
Singer/Songwriter

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What is it you would let go of today?

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. vRelease the fear. vRefuse to entertain your old pain.

The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?"

Mary Manin Morrissey
Minister, Author and Speaker

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