Our Changing Normal

"There is nothing permanent except change." - Heraclitus

Each of us encounter changes in our lives on a fairly constant basis. Change is really the one thing that seems to remain constant in our life. I have experienced many changes in my lifetime and as such had to adopt a willingness to flow with those changes.

This has been especially true when it comes to my job in the high tech industry. For over 35 years I have managed to remain employed even as the industry continues to evolve rapidly. The last thirty years have been with one company, so suffice to say the young guys are probably putting me into the dinosaur class.

But I am still here, keeping up with the changes.

In all of my year, I have had to adapt as many of you have in your lives. I have paid a personal cost due to changes and decisions made which were not expected. As it is said, one decision begets another, so on and so forth.

Yet all of us survive and push through.

Many times I could have wallowed in a negative attitude, complaining about all that was happening around me. Doing so would have left me lost in a sea of change. To feel you have lost all control can make it difficult to pull out of at times.

You struggle to find one bit of good through the maze of confusion.

And once you find the good, it becomes your focus and the goodness grows. To have a positive attitude helps tremendously and it will guide you through the bad times. It will help you get safely to the other side.

I am reminded of dialog from a movie called Tombstone, in which Wyatt Earp is telling a dying Doc Holliday that all he ever wanted was a 'normal' life. Doc Holliday responds to him by saying, "Wyatt, there is no such thing as a normal life. It's just life."

The same is true in our own life. There is no such thing as a normal life because life will happen around you. That is the normal part of living. How you react and respond to that 'normal' will determine the type of life you live.

Choose to live it well. Choose to live it in a positive way.

Stay inspired my friends!

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

- Charles R. Swindoll -

Rose Petals or Thorns

"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose." - Kahlil Gibran

There are many people going about their daily lives who do not realize their attitude can have a tremendous effect upon their stress level.

Being constantly negative can cause a great amount of stress.

How you look at situations as being a threat, challenge, beneficial or negative, stressful or exciting, is a matter of your point of view. But this point of view can have impact on your life. By getting rid of self-defeating thought patterns, life can be more productive, happier and less stressful.

By simply changing your attitude.

There are many articles you can read which will help you find a new attitude. One in particular is titled Reduce Stress and Improve Your Life with Positive Self Talk - Develop the Positive Self Talk Habit! by Elizabeth Scott, M.S. Here are a few of her thoughts, but read the entire article if you want to find out more.

Notice Your Patterns: The first step toward change is to become more aware of the problem. You probably don’t realize how often you say negative things in your head, or how much it affects your experience. The following strategies can help you become more conscious of your internal dialogue and its content.

Journal Writing: Whether you carry a journal around with you and jot down negative comments when you think them, write a general summary of your thoughts at the end of the day, or just start writing about your feelings on a certain topic and later go back to analyze it for content, journaling can be an effective tool for examining your inner process.

Thought-Stopping: As you notice yourself saying something negative in your mind, you can stop your thought mid-stream my saying to yourself “Stop”. Saying this aloud will be more powerful, and having to say it aloud will make you more aware of how many times you are stopping negative thoughts, and where.

Rubber-Band Snap: Another therapeutic trick is to walk around with a rubber band around your wrist; as you notice negative self-talk, pull the band away from your skin and let it snap back. It’ll hurt a little, and serve as a slightly negative consequence that will both make you more aware of your thoughts, and help to stop them! (Or, if you don’t want to subject yourself to walking around with a rubber band on your wrist, you’ll be even more careful to limit the negative thoughts!)

Replace Negative Statements: A good way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something better. Once you’re aware of your internal dialogue, here are some ways to change it:

Milder Wording: Have you ever been to a hospital and noticed how the nurses talk about ‘discomfort’ instead of ‘pain’? This is generally done because ‘pain’ is a much more powerful word, and discussing your ‘pain’ level can actually make your experience of it more intense than if you’re discussing your ‘discomfort’ level. You can try this strategy in your daily life. In your self-talk, turning more powerful negative words to more neutral ones can actually help neutralize your experience. Instead of using words like ‘hate’ and ‘angry’ (as in, “I hate traffic! It makes me so angry!”), you can use words like ‘don’t like’ and ‘annoyed’ (“I don’t like traffic; it makes me annoyed,” sounds much milder, doesn’t it?)

Change Negative to Neutral or Positive: As you find yourself mentally complaining about something, rethink your assumptions. Are you assuming something is a negative event when it isn’t, necessarily? (For example, having your plans cancelled at the last minute can be seen as a negative, but what you do with your newly-freed schedule can be what you make of it.) The next time you find yourself stressing about something or deciding you’re not up to a challenge, stop and rethink, and see if you can come up with a neutral or positive replacement.

Change Self-Limiting Statements to Questions: Self-limiting statements like “I can’t handle this!” or “This is impossible!” are particularly damaging because they increase your stress in a given situation and they stop you from searching for solutions. The next time you find yourself thinking something that limits the possibilities of a given situation, turn it into a question. Doesn’t “How can I handle this?” or “How is this possible?” sound more hopeful and open up your imagination to new possibilities?

The pessimist in you is probably saying "this is all silliness and will never work." Well I say why not give it a try and see a change in your life.

See the rose for all it's beauty and the greatness in your own life.

And stay inspired my friends!

Ride Of Your Life

"It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized." - Wayne Dyer

The news is full of chaos and trouble. There are problems reported in Iraq, oil prices up or down, violent storms, and a hundred other things cloud our minds. Sometimes it can certainly feel like the end times described by various religions is upon us.

Heck, it makes you wonder if the Mayans were being conservative in their dates!

Yes, tongue firmly planted in cheek at this point. But all of the mayhem can overload our senses and lives. It tends to pile up on top of what we are already going through in the normal part of our life. You can wonder endlessly about these things, spending the day in worry.

In the grand scheme of things, there isn't much you can do about these things outside of your control. You can't stop the fighting in Iraq, nor keep a cyclone from bearing down upon ac ountry. You can not stop those things anymore then people before us could prevent history from happening.

While it is overwhelming, life for you can not grind to a halt. You need to keep moving forward. You need to work on those things in your life that you do have control over. And what you have control over is your attitude.

Take the energy you are pouring into worry and direct it towards moving forward. Focus it on what you can do, on where you want to be, on your journey to a great life.

History is a roller coaster of events and occurrences.

Some parts are going to be thrilling, some parts scary, but it is the ride of your life.

Change your attitude and change your life.

And stay inspired my friends.

What Rules Your Life

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

In life, we try to set ourselves in the company of others and within circumstances that allow us to experience opportunities to grow and advance. The kind of people we associate with, the places we hang around, the types of books we read and the things we watch. All of these things can have an impact on our life and many times in subtle ways we barely detect.

And many times we do not get to choose our circumstance.

Life has a way of placing a rock in the bag of stuff we are carrying in our lives. Driving to work and nails poorly secured on another vehicle creating a flat tire to impact your morning. An illness that seems to come out of nowhere. A local power outage right in the middle of your favorite television show.

How we respond to every circumstance depends upon one thing...attitude.

Charles Swindoll wrote, "The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our Attitudes."

It is with that by which we control how our day will be and in turn how we will treat others.

Circumstance will not rule our lives if we have the right attitude.

Stay inspired my friends!

What is Attitude

ATTITUDE

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.

It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.

It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday 

regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past... 

we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.

We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, 

and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

- Charles R. Swindoll -

Stay inspired my friends!

No Shoes

"I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet." ~ Ancient Persian Saying

How easy it is to feel sorry for ourselves. The thought that anyone could have it any worse then ourself. The drive home with miserable traffic and you really don't want to talk about what happened at work. It might be a headache you are nursing or not having enough money for a trip to the beach.

There are many things we might catch ourselves in complaint about.

We get ourselves into looking for signs that it will be a bad day. From the list below, there are plenty of us who have viewed one of these on one or more occasions as our "bad sign."

~ You watch the evening news and see they are showing emergency routes out of the city.
~ Your 4-year-old tells you it is almost impossible to flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
~ You have to sit down to brush your teeth in the morning.
~ The bird singing outside your window is a vulture.
~ Your kids begin treating you the same way you treated your parents.
~ Everyone is laughing but you.

Could it possibly be anyone is having a worse day than you?

Probably yes.

Look around you in the areas you generally don't look. The sections of town you conveniently bypass or ignore as you drive by. There he is, the disheveled man pushing a cart filled with his life. The car broken down along the side of a road with the single mom and two kids inside.

Yes, there are things much worse in life that could be happening to us.

When you think about it, life is pretty darn good if we simply take time to appreciate what we do have. I'm not here to say it can't get worse, nor am I here to say things couldn't be better. I am saying there are those that do have things a lot worse than you.

Knowing that to be the case, when you think your life is going bad, try helping someone else. No questions asked, asking nothing in return. See if that can turn your attitude about your own life around.

See if you can turn your life around by turning someone else's life around.

Stay inspired my friends!

Grace Changes Things

"And you know, when you've experienced grace and you feel like you've been forgiven, you're a lot more forgiving of other people. You're a lot more gracious to others." - Rick Warren

All of us get to ride our lives on a rollercoaster that sees our mood, our situation and circumstance change from time to time. It can cause us to have a bad day, maybe get a little cranky as well.

When it happens, it does helps the situation when others have grace for you.

The Hebrew word for grace is chesed, which means "loving kindness" and implies the giving of oneself to help another without regard to compensation.

It is an act which affords people an opportunity to help others change their lives. It is an act that helps people get through those difficult periods or bad moods in life. Without it, I'm sure my wife would have given up long ago.

We each have varying levels of grace in our hearts to give. The ability to overlook the bad and see that goodness lives within another person. As humans, our grace is naturally limited and exists at varying levels. Yet we need the ability to show grace upon others or it would be a pretty miserable life for everyone.

As humans we are prone to make mistakes; to have a bad day or to 'get cranky' from time to time. If we recognize this fact, then we have the ability to give a little slack (grace) to others. I have been given this slack throughout my lifetime. And I try to use that excess slack as often as possible by giving it back to others.

Granted, I have to exercise more grace when it comes to my superior driving skills in comparison to others. But I'm getting better and yes, I make fun of myself in that regard. I may think my driving skills are better, but it is just an illusion.

In recognizing my driving is really not much better than others, it changes my attitude. In recognizing I can not read the mind of another driver or understand why they did or did not do something while driving, it changes my attitude.

Chances are, the other driver is probably wondering the same thing about me. If I recognize it, my attitude changes and I can have a little bit of grace. back off, relax and let it go. Can you try it for half a day?

Give just a bit more grace to others around you.

A half day can stretch into a full day. A full day will stretch into being an everyday habit. Watch what happens to your life when you extend a little grace to others. You will be amazed.

Stay inspired my friends!

Who Am I

I am seldom considered, although I do more to influence everything about you than virtually any one thing in your life.

I often control the time you get up in the morning, the time you go to sleep, what you eat and drink and the very thought that runs through your head.

I can make you either happy or sad, loving or hateful, cheerful or remorseful, congenial or spiteful and in doing so, control the very capacity that you have for success.

No, you don't often think of me instead you BLAME the problem I create on the shortcoming of others, or the state of the economy, or your family or a million other reasons.

Often at times unable to find anyone else to BLAME you look for shortcomings within yourself on which to lay the BLAME.

When my impact on your life fully is considered in your every thought and action, when you are mindful of my awesome power, when you nurture and groom me for positive use in your life, I can become more contagious than the most prolific disease ever witnessed by man.

My influence will spread to every person you come in contact with.

Groomed and nurtured in a positive manner there will be no person or obstacle that can stand in the way of my success or fail to be impacted for the better.

I am your attitude.

Stay inspired my friends.

Repairing a Leak

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of." ~ Jim Rohn

Most every morning is a quiet pre-dawn drive to work. Very little traffic, the windows down and the springtime air flowing through the car. My short drive takes me down a freeway to a familiar exit. A few more blocks and the empty parking lot awaits my arrival.

These early mornings give me a peaceful couple of hours before others arrive. I can get many things accomplished with very little distraction. A soft start to the day before the crush of everything takes hold.

This day was seemingly no different in its beginning as I pulled out of my driveway. The cool morning breeze filtering through the car, out the neighborhood and to the freeway. My freeway exit arrived and as I pulled up to the stop light a very odd noise from the rear of the car. As suddenly as it sounded, it went away. A few blocks to work and I would have my cup of coffee.

As I pulled into the empty parking lot, a new sound pierced the quiet morning. A small part of me for an instant thought, "no, the noise is coming from somewhere else." Wishful thinking, a rear tire was losing air. The awful hiss of a tire venting itself of all it contains. You can insert a small amount of grumbling at this point.

The cool morning breeze mixing with the warm compressed air flowing out of my tire did nothing to brighten the moment. I stood there thinking the person that lost the package of wood screws would be scratching their head about now. They would be saying to themselves, "I know I packed those in the truck this morning before leaving."

So here I have a tire going flat, a perfect illustration of one losing their momentum. All energy and attitude escaping from within oneself. I could have reacted similarly to that tire. I could have gotten upset, yelled a few cuss words and kicked the tire. Okay, I grumbled a few cuss words. But then it was a matter of just getting on with it.

Life will toss moments at you. Some times it will be nails in the road to flatten a tire. Other times it will be worse. All of these moments will cause you to 'leak' your attitude. You have two choices at those moments in time.

One choice is to go flat and do nothing but give up. A flat tire and a flat attitude will not go very far. Eventually the tire will shred and your life will be left in pieces.

Your other choice is to get on with overcoming the circumstance. You repair the tire, plug the hole and refill your life with new air, new attitude. When you have a well-rounded tire, filled to the right PSI then life rolls on much easier, much more efficiently.

Before long, you will be back out on the highway to your destination. You will be back on the road to your dreams and not stuck on the side of the road with a flat life.

Stay inspired my friends!

Storms Reveal

"Storms reveal what a sunny day conceals." - Jill Sweetman

When the day begins, I get into my car and drive off down the road to work. In the breaking morning light, I look to the sky in order to get a sense of what the weather will be that day. I have done this from my early days of being raised on a farm. Over the course of my many years, I have learned to appreciate and curse what awaits over the horizon.

I could look to a weather forecast the day or days before and make a judgement on what kind of day might be in store. But I would rather wait upon the change, the gathering light in the morning, to see what is revealed.

Many times, if the day starts out sunny and mild, the expectation of a great day sets the mood for many of us. We tend to be more pleasing to others and in our attitude. When things are going well such as family, work and other parts of our lives; our true ability to weather a storm is easily concealed.

But when weather is bad, when 'storms' in life come along, our true nature can be revealed.

Think of your morning drive to work. If storms are filling the early day with rain, wind and miserable conditions, do you allow your spirits to dampen? If you do, those feelings will translate into stress, shortness with others and just a lousy attitude.

If you learn to accept the rain and adjust your own reaction to it, the drive isn't so bad. Your attitude can bring a certain amount of 'sunshine' into the gloominess of a rainy day. Very easy for me to state the obvious, but you need to examine your own attitude when things are bad.

When things are going well, it is easy to be positive about things. It is easy to be nice, friendly and helpful to others.

Yet when things are not going so well in your life, this will be the true measure of your inner attitude.

Stay strong, stay positive, stay happy and stay inspired my friends!

My Attitude

Choosing A Path

"We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them." ~ Elbert Hubbard

What is attitude and how does it relate to you and others?

To me it is a core component of not only one's work but is an essential part of one's life. There are people that go through life constantly battling the belief that, "..if only others would treat me more nicely, then I could have a more positive attitude." These people always believe that others are the reason for their misery. And since others are to blame for their feeling this way, then they justify treating others just as poorly. It is an easy way not to take responsibility for your own actions.

I myself would never say it is easy to maintain a great attitude. My drive into work each day leads me to a freeway and lots of merging cars and people including myself that should have left 5 minutes earlier. Road tension can be high especially when you couple that with a general belief that your own driving skill is better then that of anyone else. There is plenty of opportunity for someone to purposely or inadvertently cut you off or send you a signal.

But how do you let it effect you?

Early in the morning, on the way to work, are you willing to let that other person set the tone of the day for you? Many people do and it isn't just the checkout person in the big discount store that allows it to effect themselves. It is also the person taking service calls over the phone, the bank teller handling your money and yes, the CEO on his or her way to an important meeting.

Attitude is a choice and your life can be changed by changing your attitude. Norman Vincent Peale said, "human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes." It can and does change lives. It can start on that morning drive to work. Try it some time when somebody 'wrongs' you on the road. Just smile and keep your hands firmly on the steering wheel. You may be surprised how it changes your day.

Stay inspired my friends!

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Tending a Garden

“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.” -Irving Berlin

Our day is made up of hours and minutes that provide us with an opportunity to constantly evaluate our attitude.

Your attitude is not something which can be easily disguised during the work day, only to be turned off when at home. Attitude is something that is with us throughout our day.

If your work day is filled with negative affirmation it will turn into negative actions at home. It will severely impact your life and family. Negative affirmations creep into our positive well-being and destroys it; much like a weed that begins to overtake a garden.

Work on your attitude and make it a 24-hour a day positive attitude that lights up all of your day. The negative will slowly fade away and be overtaken by a wonderful garden of positive thought.

Stay inspired my friends.

Yield to a Positive Attitude

“Although our inattention can contribute to our lack of total well-being, we also have the power to choose positive behaviors and responses. In that choice we change our every experience of life!” -Greg Anderson

yield; [synonyms: yield, relent, bow, defer, submit, capitulate, succumb]. All of these verbs mean to give in to what one can no longer oppose or resist. They are variations of the word yield and on the surface would seem to mean defeat. You might even think it means to show signs of weakness.

In another definition, yielding can be a term of strength.

If you allow yourself to be the upstanding person and let the small transgressions in life go by without seeking retribution is a hard quality to live by. I am not suggesting we allow ourselves to be tread upon. There is a time to stand up for what is right and correct that which is wrong. What I am suggesting is that we can be the better person.

Yielding means allowing yourself to submit to the power of being positive.

All of us know and have heard that 'evil' (for lack of a better term) is a powerful influence. That we all seem to be drawn to the negative. And do you know why? Because being negative is easy, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort. So the negative draws attention, bad news stories will draw more viewers then a news program filled with stories of bake sales at the local elementary.

People can become lazy to the impact of being positive when you surround yourself with all of the negative news, negative water cooler talk and other forms or downtrodden on life. So many people misunderstand the power in overcoming negativity.

The power of being positive will improve your life.

Yield to the power of positive thinking; the power of having a positive attitude. Will it make you rich? Maybe it will, maybe it won't. What it will do is enrichen your life no matter what your circumstance. It will draw you into a more positive and successful crowd of people. This in turn improves your opportunity to improve your life. You will learn and gain from being in an environment of great people.

Stay with the complainers and you will become one.

Yield to the power that a positive attitude can have on your life. You will be drawn into greatness with others. See the world, see your life from a new perspective. And stay inspired my friends!

Feed Goodness

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." ~Kahlil Gibran

There is a story in which an old Cherokee tells his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Each of us have the ability to choose a path to follow. You may feel that the choice of paths is limited. But if you see it that way, then you are missing the point. Your attitude will determine the greatness (or not) of the path chosen.

Now do not get me wrong, if your choice is a destructive life-style then the consequences will soon overcome you. I would be surprised if a meth addict eventually enjoys having made the choice they did. Nor a fading porn star, alcoholic or any one of a dozen things.

When you find your life not where you want it to be; complaint will not get you out of it. In fact, the energy you exert in complaint will be wasted. Choosing to take a more positive view will allow you to divert that energy towards finding a better path. You will be more focused on what you can change in your life.

As the wise old man said, "the one you feed" will be the life you get. There are so many changed lives out there based upon this simple principle of life. Feed the positive nature of your life and let it grow to great heights.

Stay inspired my friends!

No More Rocks

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks." -Tennessee Williams

I have written before that there are people who will try to place their rocks into your wagon. They do this instead of building their own path. These rocks they 'serve up' to you are intended to bring you down to their pain or misery. They are emptying to unload their own troubles into your life.

Think of an encounter at the grocery store, a technical support line or any other number of daily connections. Is the other person really trying to help you? Or by their words and actions, are they handing you their rocks?

Through the years I have been able to listen to different folks from check out lanes to numerous customer assistance support phone calls. In nearly every case, you can tell by the tone of their voice or interest level how their day and sometimes life is going.

This is not a big new revelation I have come up with.

It is age old and most anyone, including yourself can sense these things. All of us deal in customer service in one form or another. We serve customers that are either really business customers, our boss, our community, or our family. Most every thing we do involves service to others in one form or another. In those moments, do you sometimes have other things on your mind.

Do you vaguely try to toss a few stones into some else's wagon?

I am sure there are people that can explain the psychological aspects of how and why people do this. My simplistic version is that people just like to unload their issues (rocks) on other people. In doing so, they hope it will make their life better. But I see it as these people attempting to drag you down to their attitude level.

Dragging you down to their level is much easier than trying to lift themselves.

Try it some time, listen to how the other person is talking. Is the tone of their language effecting your own attitude? Is it depressing, angering or just making you feel lousy? If so, STOP...remember the first rule? You control your own attitude. As Elbert Hubbard, an American philosopher and writer said, "The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it."

Also remember that you can impact the other persons life as well.

Your responses and how you react to another person transcends not only the encounter but the next encounter both people will have. Maybe not in a big impactful way but in small ripples that move out from this one exchange. It is these small ripples which have a big impact eventually.

Do not allow yourself to carry the rocks of another person. Help them unload the rocks to build a new path. No one needs to be carrying a bunch of rocks around if they do not want to. The road to where we want to be can be paved with those rocks instead of struggling to carry them through the dirt and mud.

Unload your wagon, not onto someone else but create a new path on which to travel. And as always, stay inspired my friends!

Building a Roof

"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are." -Tobias Wolff

I will be upfront and honest with you. What I am about to describe would not have been possible for me fifteen or twenty years ago. There would have been an attempt but I simply was not the same person back in those days. But I can also say that I had my moments this time as well. So please bear with me as I tell you my tale of success.

It all started a few weeks ago, the story I am about to tell you that is.

We are new, or at least newer, homeowners after eighteen years in a much older home. Our new home has a great yard and a great deck off the back of the house. the one thing we decided to do was look into building a roof over part of the large deck. This would provide us with an open area to sit even during the rain and still enjoy the outdoors.

Plans were discussed with a friend on how we could build this new and amazing roof to enhance the deck area. All that remained was to contact our homeowner's association for approval and then pull the proper county building permit. This was going to be a "piece of cake" especially after I had spoken with a very nice man named Joel with the planning department.

I had drawn up a reasonable set of plans that would show the simple nature of the roof, how it would blend in architecturally and no other complications should ensure. Then off to the county offices, papers in hand to meet with the correct people.

After a mistake, on my part of waiting in the wrong office, I met with Joel and we drew up a quick hand drawing of the lot showing house location, etc. This was so simple he said, it should be "piece of cake."

It seemed most everyone in our county of nearly one million residents were applying for a building permit this day. But I waited patiently for my turn with the "Development Plan Review" person. When my name was incorrectly pronounced as Jocelyn instead of Joseph, I didn't respond at first. When I realized it was my name being called, the lady was clearly not happy that I could not interpret what she was saying.

Hang on I said to myself, you are almost there.

Alas, the moment we sat down I knew this was not going well and she immediately didn't like the hand drawing. The same one that the very nice man named Joel in the Planning Department had drawn for me. To shorten my story, I would need a scale drawing, two copies to be exact. It seemed that her having a bad day was going to be mine as well. And I was nearly ready to let that happen. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it in check.

As I left the office, she said with what seemed a smirk, "...hope to see you again real soon." I responded "...hope that your day gets better and thank you for helping me."

Yes, there could have been a scene. I could have thrown a temper tantrum. I could have allowed whatever was possibly making her day a bad one, my problem. My attitude was going to stay above the line and it did. And maybe, just maybe by keeping my attitude in check, having a bit of grace for the woman with the red pen, I helped make her day slightly better.

The next day I returned with the paperwork requested. It was a new day, new perspective, and new optimism. I breezed through the "Development Plan Review" (different lady), the "Storm/Water/Sewer Plan Review" and with a slight bump in the actual "Building Permits" only one final stage remained. I would need to speak with the "Building Inspections" folks to clear up a small issue with the existing deck.

Well over an hour wait and closing time was nearing. I was sure inspectors were out and the very nice lady at the desk offered to contact one of the gentlemen over in the offices. There were only three minor questions, but I was determined not to leave until I was certain all was complete. In a few minutes, a man walked through the door to greet me.

We both smiled and laughed a little bit. My first response to him was, "the circle is now complete." the man greeting me was Joel, the very same person I had started my odyssey with. Life is good and we shared a few laughs, got my questions answered and left very happy in spite of any bumps.

We can choose to allow circumstance to get the better of us. We can choose to allow others to dictate how we feel.

Or we can choose to overcome circumstance. We can choose to determine how we are going to feel.

Persistence and attitude, they are for you to determine, not someone else. Build a great attitude over your life to shelter you and those around you from the storms of others. And stay inspired folks and have a great day.

The U in Attitude

"Your attitude in the workplace can be one of the most - if not the most - telling aspect of how others in the company look at you and feel about you as a coworker." -Carl Mueller

Attitude is the one thing that you truly have to take full responsibility for. Many times people will find a way to blame things on others. They will attempt to deflect and find other causes for their behavior. Sometimes it might be legitimate such as someone accidentally spilling water on your new slacks. Or maybe it is another that ran a stop light and ran into your car.

But how we react to each and every situation is a product of our own attitude. The way in which you conduct yourself reflects quite a bit about who you are as a person. Does it mean you will never get upset or angry? Of course not, but you can effect how the situation unfolds. As Carl Mueller states, not only in the workplace, but in the 'every' place, how people react to you is a reflection of your attitude.

Take the 'spilled water' scenario, which can be an accident, clumsiness or some other reason out of our control. If you react with an angry and accusatory demeanor, the other person will stiffen up and the situation can spiral needlessly out of control. You end up feeling worse, the other person likely feels bad already about what happened. All over a simple case of 'spilled water'.

What about the car accident scenario? First the hope is that everyone is okay but then a rush of feelings will emerge. I have seen examples in which actual fights broke out. An already bad and nerve busting situation is now escalating to an even worse situation. Cooler heads that prevail will make the situation easier to get through.

In the workplace, it can certainly effect the environment and even your ability to advance. The attitude you project says so much about you and how people will to react to and around you.

It is a simple concept to understand; people like nice people, people dislike cranky people.

There is so much more that can be said or described about attitude. There are many that can write or say it more eloquently than I can. Yet my way of looking at attitude is that there is a you in attitUde. And it is something that 'YOU' can change.

Stay inspired my friends!

Storms Revealed

"Storms reveal what a sunny day conceals." -Jill Sweetman

When the day begins, I get into my car and drive off down the road to work. In the breaking morning light, I look to the sky in order to get a sense of what the weather is going to be like. Since I was raised on the farm, I've learned to appreciate and curse what awaits over the horizon.

I may look to a weather forecast and judge what kind of day it might be, but I would rather wait upon the change. If the day starts out sunny and mild, the expectation of a great day sets the mood for many of us. We tend to be more pleasing to others and in our attitude.

When things are going well such as family, work and other aspects of our lives; our true ability to weather a storm is easily concealed. There is an old phrase that goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." In many respects that phrase is about determination to overcome. But when the going gets tough, when the 'storms' in your life occur, our true nature is revealed.

Think again of the morning drive into work. If storms are filling the early day with rain, wind and miserable conditions, do you allow your spirits to be dampened. When you do, it will translate into stress, shortness with others and just a lousy attitude.

If you learn to accept the rain and adjust your own reaction to it, the drive isn't so bad. Your own attitude can bring a certain 'sunshine' into the gloominess of a rainy day. Very easy for me to state the obvious, but you need to examine your own attitude when things are bad.

When things are going well, it is easy to be positive about things. Yet when things are going not so well in your life, this will be the true measure of your inner attitude.

Stay inspired my friends.

Attitude Check

"The greatest revolution in our generation is that of human beings, who by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." -Marilyn Ferguson

Did you check the oil level in your car's engine today by chance? Maybe you created a checklist of grocery items needed for the house last night before going to bed. As you left for work, you may have stopped to check the thermometer or rain gauge to see what the weather is like. Are you really prepared for the day?

And we all do this; stop by the mirror to check what we look like. We make sure our hair is combed straight and that our clothing for the day looks appropriate. Again, are you really prepared?

The one thing we do forget is to check our attitude.

Knowing what type of mood we are in can make all the difference in how our day proceeds. But many times it is the last thing we ever think of doing. We rush off, out the door into a world that is waiting to test your very attitude. Maybe we are not quite prepared?

The unexpected nature of life does not mean that life is 'out to get you.' Rather it is just life happening and if we prepare our attitude ahead of time, then adjusting to the roller coaster events will easily be enjoyed or endured (for those that do not like roller coaster rides).

Now you are prepared!

Take a few minutes each morning to just relax and reflect upon how you want your day to go. Prepare yourself to understand how you feel going into your day. It is an attitude check that you can perform at any point or multiple points through out your day. An attitude check will prepare you for a great day and should be a part of the everyday routine.

Stay inspired my friends!

Shifting Sand

"You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations." - Zig Ziglar

In the throes of all your plans being washed away, what would you do? The circumstances we find ourselves in can ruin a pretty good day for sure. But in the bigger scheme of your life, you should not let it have an overbearing impact on your attitude.

Take for instance a wedding planned to be held beach side. What was to be a great sunset ceremony along the beautiful Pacific ocean is over run by a coming storm. All hope and happiness could be lost.

Yet to keep your life moving forward, maintain the best attitude possible and in the last minutes think through your options. You know someone that may know someone that is able to get you a banquet room overlooking the ocean. It happens, the guests arrive and a beautiful view of the Pacific ocean is still a reality.

One could have wallowed in despair over the lost opportunity. It might have been a missed chance to stand on the beach to exchange wedding vows. Staying frozen in that despair would have left you with no ability to take advantage of other opportunity. Your energy would have been consumed by thinking what could have been instead of what can be.

Did one miss out on something wished for? Sure, but keeping a great attitude about the situation a new opportunity opened up and you were able to see it. By keeping your eyes and mind open even when things are not going the way you want, other things will open up in front of you.

Opportunity is there for you to see if you keep looking forward. Eventually you will get to walk along the beach with the sand between your toes. Your life will have leaped forward beyond your original expectations.

Stay inspired my friends.