Blog Archives
Meme Monday (Don’t Stop)
It is your life, you decide what to do with it.
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Famous Quote Friday (Helen Keller)
“Life is either a great adventure or nothing.”
– Helen Keller
That is it right there! Life should be a great adventure. Life is what you make it. If you want to make it nothing go right ahead. I may not have a lot of money; frankly my life feels like it is going down whitewater rapids sometimes. If money is what mattered I would be sitting in a great job with graphic design and great people back in Illinois where almost everyone I know live. But that is not my life. Everything in life is not only an adventure it is a learning experience. Through heartbreak I discovered new passions, and I am still discovering more. I want to be a motivational speaker…THAT is my great adventure. Will I get there? Will I stick to it? Will it take me places I have never been? Will it make sense? I will fail, I will fall, I will cry, I will take steps toward the edge of my life, but there is one thing some people don’t know about me. Through times of weakness I ALWAYS DO MY BEST and I NEVER GIVE UP!!!! Everything happens for a reason. I moved down here to Florida at a chance to take a job as a Zip-line tour guide and it turned into something much greater and completely different. Now I am a ESE Paraprofessional working with children with autism. My job goes beyond that title with all the kids I interact with at the school. In an adventurous life you always have to be ready for it to change. Just so you know I love whitewater rafting and oddly enough when I balance myself back up I realize how much I enjoy the challenges.
I sit here, on the patio of life’s next great adventure, knowing I have choices in my very own choose your own adventure lifestyle, and it makes me feel pretty awesome. No one can stop me, all anyone can do is help and support me. What is next for me? Where will I end up? What holes will I fall in and what trips to the sky will I elevate to next? I know one thing; MY LIFE IS FAR FROM NOTHING. I hope every one of yours is too. Take a look at the menu, are you hungry for life? What kind of adventure will you order next?
The 3 most important things in life
The 3 most important things in life are communication, empathy and gratitude.
Communication
In all successful parts of life you need good communication. From your boss to your spouse, you need to have a good send and receive between every important person in your life. With all the new technology we have this day in age; so many things can be misunderstood in too many ways. Also if you cannot be honest in saying something to someone what is the point of having them in your life? It is so easy to keep the lines of communication open with anyone all you have to do is talk and listen. The most obvious and best communication is face to face. This way you leave very little to be misunderstood.
The biggest and most important communication is with yourself. Listen to your body and listen to your heart. When your sick don’t ignore it and when you are happy let yourself feed off of that happiness. It is always wise to listen to your heart it will always tell you far greater things then your brain. When you are listening to yourself you can certainly be successful with anything you want out of life.
Empathy
Something I seem to have naturally done most of my life is being empathetic. Showing empathy is so important. How can you be fair in any situation without putting yourself in other people’s shoes? Empathy is the heart of solving almost any problem. It really makes you realize how little of a problem some things are. With empathy you are easily able to express sympathy and more compassion toward others as well. Not only can you avoid physical arguments with empathy you can also help others through tough situations in their lives.
Gratitude
Only a few years ago I really fully understood gratitude and its importance. I did a 30 day gratitude challenge (something more valuable then that Facebook one going around) and it really changed my perspective of how I think. You can get so much more out of life with a little gratitude. We should be grateful for every opportunity we have in our lives. The things you work really hard for are super easy to be grateful about, but it is the simple things you need to be grateful for in your life as well. Everything you send out comes back. If you are grateful for something you are just tossing positive in the air, positivism that will certainly come back to you in some shape or form.
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Does anyone see the connections here? If you have no gratitude for things and people in your life, chances are you carry no empathy for those things also. None of this can be revealed without communication. Don’t get sucked into any miscommunication all it becomes is a whirlpool of problems, if you cannot put yourself in the same view as others I guarantee you will not be a very likable person, and if you have no gratitude for the small things and people in your life you are just robbing yourself of much needed positive energy.
Meme Monday (Goals)
Goals will give your life success. It is something to reach for, something to hope for, and something to accomplish.
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Famous Quote Friday (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
I may not be popular now, I may not be intellectual enough for some, I have not mastered everything I am interested in, but I will in time be able to inspire everyone willing to listen. Not only will I leave a trail but I will leave directions on how to get where I am. I am not sitting on the achievements of the American dream, I am sitting on the adventure of the unmapped trail of my life. I have taken risk after risk, experienced failure after failure, but also lived through success after success; Ralph left us a trail through individualism, naturalism, and the freedom of your soul. Especially in this day in age, now we get wrapped up in what everyone else is doing and in where everyone else is going. It’s a fine line to realize if you are doing what society and social media have planned for you or if you are doing what you want. I am not rebellious of what people of this world have taught us toward our future I just realize there is so much more this world has to offer. If you are ready to live your life take a step sideways and create a brand new experience in your life. Take a risk outside of the safety of your regular life. Do something you have never done or something you never thought you would do this weekend and see what happens! Live your life on your own trail.
Julian Treasure: How to speak
There are multiple reasons I want to be a motivational speaker. A lot of my life I have struggled to be parts of conversation, or have something interesting to say, or have people interested in what I am saying enough to listen. Starting up in the blog world was so I can find those people to listen and also be inspired by. Being a motivational speaker is an avenue to hopeful show that I do have important, beneficial and interesting things to say!
I am a big fan of Ted Talks and can across this gem the other day that is certainly helpful in my future and I hope he is speaking in a way that will interest you as well!
Julian Treasure: how to speak so that people want to listen
Here are some notes from the video:
7 deadly sins of speaking
-Gossip
-Judging
-Negativity
-Complaining
-Excuses/blame
-Exaggeration/lying
-Dogmatism/ facts vs. opinion
HAIL: to greet or acclaim enthusiastically
-Honesty, being straight and clear
-Authenticity, be yourself
-Integrity, be your word
-Love, wish them well
Register-speak from your chest, depth and power
Timbre- not high pitched
Prosody- don’t be monotone or talk in questions
Pace- don’t talk to fast or to slow, some silence is ok
Pitch- to emphasize things
Volume- use variably
Meme Monday (Luck)
When you give everything a trying luck will give you the advantage at the right moments in your life.
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Famous Quote Friday (Bess Hardwick)
“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”
– Elizabeth Hardwick
Elizabeth Hardwick, also known as Bess, was a writer as well as a writing teacher was certainly not shy to the benefits of reading. She was also a critic to American literacy. We all should be grateful to have the resources to read and we all should be grateful for the ability to read. With the ability and resource to read the greatest gift is the passion for it. What Bess realizes is all of us have this passion. We are gifted with the desire to want to read. You take for granted the amount you read every day. We are always reading everywhere but your true passion for reading is inside a book, magazine, or even a blog. When you role past a paragraph and you want to know more that is your passionate side talking to you. You cannot wait for the next chapter or the next month issue, that is passion. Passion is all positivism, you find something you love and you want more. When you read you learn, that is what makes it such a great gift. Not only do you have that passion for reading you have the passion to learn more. We are all reading all the time, don’t you owe it to yourself to find reading material that will inspire you? Gift yourself this weekend and go to the library to find your passion.
I love all of you.
Read and Watch
Everyone reading this knows full well the impact that reading has on our lives. It changes your level of knowledge, your level of creativity and changes your life. What you choose to read is a big reflection on your life. If you choose to read The Onion or The National Inquirer where do you think your life is going? It is going into a world of negativity where you really don’t have big plans to amount to anything in your life. Now, if you read something like Discover or Success magazine, you seek inspiration and fuel to achieve in your own creative goals. Read to be inspired, there are many paths reading can take you: You can read to promote your spiritual path, you can read to increase your knowledge on select subjects or you can read things just to get the gears in your brain to turn. I know this is cliche but there are tons of blogs out there worth reading and following. You just have to look for them. The list of things you can read and the paths you can take with it are endless but ultimately what you read will affect your life even in ways you don’t realize.
What you watch can have the same effects as reading. Those reality show, what are you really getting out of them? You are not getting anything worth taking to your future. Aside from a few documentaries and positively inspiring programs I cannot really think of a whole lot of good things to watch on TV. The internet is a plethora of videos. How many epic fail video compilations do you need to watch to look past the temporary laughter and realize you yourself are failing epically at a life that has so much potential? To find the positive and inspiring videos all you have to do is look. Ted Talks is a great place to start. In fact next Wednesday I will be sharing a video I recently watched on Ted Talks. (TED LINK)
I have taken it upon myself to be more structured in my efforts to read more and watch more inspiring videos. I have been more actively reading my followers blogs and other people’s blogs. I read sections of “Notes from the Universe” by Mike Dooley, on a daily basis. I seek out positive memes and a few other things to read each day. As far as videos I don’t do too much with that but I watch one Ted Talks video every day. You should definitely check that site out.
I do ask graciously if you could please share readings, reading materials or videos that inspire you. Please leave them in a comment below I would absolutely like to see what inspires my followers and anyone really! PLEASE SHARE THIS BLOG WITH OTHERS. The more positive and inspiring things we share with one another the bigger our doors of life open up. Have a great day I look forward to seeing what you have to share!
Meme Monday (Life)
Never give up because the thing that is right for you will always work! Your life challenge is to try everything and find those things that work.
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