Into 2021 We Go

Gregorian calendar says we are ending the year of 2020 tonight,
And overnight we enter 2021,
All with the same hope and excitement that a new year brings. 

The past year of 2020 challenged everyone in many different ways,

And it would be easy to dismiss,

A year deemed bad or maybe even a year to forget. 

We should not so easily turn our backs on this most challenging year,

Even as many endured so much,

Health, family or simply the impact of our isolation.

Each of us would have good reasons to curse the year,

One that was meant,

A year we thought, would be a turning point of greatness.

It was a year the futurists and prophets of positivity had said,

This year would bring,

But life determines how life itself is going to unfold.

I would rather look back on 2020 and view the challenges,

As growth, of changing perspective,

To view 2020 for the good things happened as well.

The year brought me off the road to spend more time with family,

To find new ways to connect,

To listen to people and to cherish more important things in life.

The year gave all of us celebrations, births, birthdays, accomplishment.

There was more of people talking, 

Sometimes angrily but talking is a way to start resolving differences.

We adapted and created ways to accomplish in spite of,

COVID isolation, social injustice, and pain,

Even as all of this occurred we moved forward, we did it together.

We did all of this working with each other, leaning on each other,

Trusting each other.

By sharing our human experience with each other to push through.

Now 2021, new year, new hopes, goals, dreams and opportunity,

Yet the year is but a number.

And we make of that number, the year, what we want of it.

Life will create what it does for us in the coming days and months.

There will be challenges just like in 2020,

But there will be opportunity, there will be joy, there will be success. 

As is customary, I wish the best for each of you in the new year.

I wish so much,

Health, happiness, love and peace to you, your families, your friends.

Most of all I wish for each of you to find greatness in yourself.  

To know you are great,

And to be happy in yourself with what you have and in what you do.

If you can find that, you can overcome anything.

Life really is great.

Let that be your wish, your goal, your success in 2021.

Stay inspired my friends! 

Our Windows

“If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.” - Tom Peters

Life constantly presents us new opportunity. Big or small, these windows of opportunity appear before us. The chance to tip just a little bit more at the restaurant which helps a hard-working single mother or working college student. Maybe it is by extending a genuine thank you in return for another person's kindness.

Opportunity varies in size and impact.

Some of these may seem insignificant while others are so large we back away from them. We "pull the shade down" because we feel inadequately prepared. But when that window of opportunity opens for you, move towards it and take in the view.

No one is ever fully prepared for opportunity.

Being able to see the opportunity presented gives us vision for our life. Looking out at each of the opportunities, taking hold of them and experiencing each one; this ability becomes a part of your life. The opportunity becomes ours, so never close that shade.

Grasp onto each opportunity because they are yours.

Stay inspired my friends!

Dream a Little Dream

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." - Les Brown

Do you remember a while back when that hidden jewel of talent became known to the whole world as Susan Boyle? She was an unassuming woman from Blackburn, Scotland who energized a popular British television show called Britain's Got Talent.

It was easy to see her appear on stage and rush to the judgement of a book by its cover. So many people, including the judges were skeptical and had pre-determined thoughts as she began her song on stage.

Susan dreamed of being a professional singer.

In her words, "She had not been given the opportunity until now." The dream was to be as good as Elaine Paige. It was a goal which reached beyond the limits others may have tried to place upon her.

The same kind of limits others try to place on your life.

But your story is not yet complete for the journey continues. Susan's story could be you. We each yearn inside to accomplish something big. We tell ourselves if only given the opportunity. We then fail to boldly take the challenge when opportunity arrives.

We each must take the bold step forward, through the door of possibility, where we must go in order to realize our dreams. No guarantee of success, but then again, no guarantee of failure exist beyond that door.

Boldly go for your dreams by embracing the journey and all that is possible.

And stay inspired my friends.

Pumping Your Own Gas

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” - Nelson Mandela

Some years ago, a high tech company from Boston named Data General existed creating computers and other devices to help businesses advance in the emerging computer era. It was a reasonably large company with a large field service organization supporting the needs of its customers.

Their support organization eventually became centered in the Atlanta, Georgia area. As a reward for doing exceptional work, Data General service personnel from around the world were rewarded at an annual awards conference. One particular conference was held in the "Big Easy" (New Orleans) and everyone had a great time.

Data General conference organizers needed someone to emcee video highlights and contacted a person by the name of Jim. This fellow named Jim was an executive in the Atlanta support center and said he had the perfect person at hand for this task. His son was an aspiring comedian in the Atlanta area who could really use the money. There are still VCR tape copies of his work from the conference floating around somewhere.

Data General would not last too many more years before getting bought out by the EMC Corporation. But this aspiring comedian by the name of Jeff Foxworthy would become very successful at this comedy thing. Today he is sought after for his brand of humor which keeps people laughing.

So why would he pump his own gas?

Well the story goes like this.

Jeff still lives in the Atlanta area and had to put gasoline into his vehicle before going to pick up one of his kids. It is something each of us do everyday and is a normal thing to be doing. Jeff truly is just a normal, average kind of guy. So he is at the gas station pumping gas into his vehicle when a lady notices him and questions him on who he is. She even asks for identification to prove it.

Now Jeff could have shunned this woman and asked her to leave him alone. There are many celebrities who would have done just that. But Jeff listened and politely accommodated the woman. It turns out they had a very nice conversation and it became apparent to Jeff this woman needed assistance with a project.

The project is House of Joy which serves homeless women and homeless mothers with dependent children in Gwinnett County, Georgia who need emergency shelter and crisis intervention services. Jeff saw a place where he could help and he did so by hosting a benefit show.

What does all of this have to do with anything?

You see it is the little moments in time that if we rush by them, we will never find opportunity to do something good.

Jeff Foxworthy could have been too rushed and missed out.

The lady who approached him could have been too busy to even ask.

But from time to time, each of us get presented with little moments which can open up an opportunity for us to do great things. You don't have to be famous or funny like Jeff. All you have to be is willing to slow down and recognize the moment.

My guess is that people will now be stalking gas stations, looking for Jeff being in need of gas again. But his calm and kind demeanor will probably handle the situation just right.

Yet we do not have to wait for a chance encounter with someone famous.

All we have to be is open to experience the moment. When you least expect it, the opportunity will appear. You will see it, you will grasp it and you will shine. so whether pumping your own gas or any of a number other tasks, be ready to seize the moment.

And stay inspired my friends.

Help Wanted

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish." - Ovid

We can become very discouraged when our run of luck seems to have gone dry one too many times. We become self-defeating in our attempt to rise above circumstance. When we reach that point, taking a chance never enters our mind.

Yet in this excerpt from CHANGED LIVES, we find one man who was down to nothing.

Chance was all he had left, yet it was more than chance.

It was a willingness to walk through a door and talk to a man named Milt.

~~~~~~

I was looking for a job anywhere with no luck, moving from bit work to hand outs for helping on daily labor, when I walked by a clothing store with a help wanted sign in the window. There I was, fully confident that the outcome of me going in and applying would be the typical 'thanks but no thanks'.

I turned to walk away when a gentleman smoking a cigarette in a little cigarette holder asked if I was looking at the help wanted sign. I replied that I was but knew I probably couldn't get that kind of job. That's when the gentleman who was Milt Harm, manager of the store introduced himself and invited me in to "just talk".

~~~~~~

Opportunity comes in ways you least expect.

But in order to allow opportunity to present itself, you have to keep moving; to keep taking chances in life. I know those who would sit on their couch and believe or expect opportunity comes knocking on their front door. Sadly you will never be found.

It takes getting out there, taking risk, taking chance.

Opportunity will cross our path once we walk out the front door and expose ourselves to life.

Keep moving, keep trying and maybe Milt will invite you in to just talk.

Stay inspired my friends!

Forward To Opportunity

“There will always be a door to the light.” ― Shiro Amano

There will be days go by when all we do is contemplate and worry over that which we have or has been done in our life. We will obsess over what might have been or what our current lot is in life.

Looking backwards constantly in our lives is one thing we must change in order to move ahead in our life.

Yes, knowing and understanding the history of where we have been is a good thing. We use it to study and reflect upon what we have previously done to place us where we are now.

To move ahead, we must look forward for opportunities that await us.

The key thing is to move forward and not stay chained to what has already occurred. In the physical sense, our eyes are in the front of our head...looking forward, not backwards. We walk forward and not backward.

Alexander Graham Bell said, "sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open." If we continue to look backwards never seeing the open door, we will never see the open door. We will never see new opportunity opening before us. We could drown in the fading light of history, wondering if things could have been different.

Keep your dreams in front of you, looking for new doors to change; for new opportunity that is presenting itself to you.

One door may close but another is always opening if we simply look for it. History and current circumstance will be your support, but forward momentum will be your future. Keep your eyes open and looking for that open door of opportunity.

Stay inspired in 2015 my friends!

Changing Winds

"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 circumstance we find ourselves in can ruin a pretty good day for sure. But in the big 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. It was to be a great sunset ceremony along the beautiful Pacific Ocean. What was to be was over run by a coming rain storm.

All hope and happiness could have been lost.

Yet we keep our senses about us knowing that life throws circumstance around. We maintain a good attitude and in the last minutes opportunity provides an option. One person knows another who might know someone capable of getting you a banquet room overlooking the ocean.

It happens and the Pacific Ocean becomes a part of the wedding ceremony.

One could have wallowed in despair over the ruined plans. You could have cried over lost plans to stand on the beach and exchange wedding vows. You could have given up, that is always an option.

Quitting would only have left you with no ability to take advantage of other opportunities. Your energy would have been consumed by thinking of what could have been instead of what can be.

Did you miss out on something wished for?

Sure, but keeping a great attitude about the situation allowed you to see a new kind of opportunity open up. By keeping your eyes and mind open even those things not going the way you would want, other options became available right there in front of you.

Opportunity will be 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. What you wanted ended up being exactly what you wanted.

Stay inspired my friends!

Just Smile

“Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.” - Andre Maurois

“A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.” - William Shakespeare

“The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.” - Sirach 30:22

“The days that make us happy make us wise.” - John Masefield

In an article published by the American Psychological Association entitled, The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?, finds that 'happy people show more frequent positive affect and specific adaptive characteristics.'

In other words, being happy and having a positive attitude will place you in a better frame of mind to accept new opportunity.

As you make change or movement in your life towards a more positive lifestyle, opportunity seems to just appear. Yet that opportunity was there all along. But with the wrong attitude you simply do not see the opportunity.

As you become happier, you see those opportunities more clearly. And as you take on those new opportunities, additional changes occur and success begins to unfold around you. Of course, success generates more happiness and good feelings within.

Your spirit will tend to rise dramatically. This rising spirit will fill and store inside to carry you through any of the downward cycles that can occur.

So can a smile actually cause success?

Maybe not immediately, but it can start a ripple effect in your life and on those around you. Smile once in a while, carry happiness with you more often and experience a change.

Stay inspired my friends!

Dancing Shoes

"Your big opportunity may be right where you are now." ~ Napoleon Hill

Some time ago I had an opportunity, huge in fact. It was one of those things that stare you right in the face and you fail to recognize it. So big that you look back at it and wonder how you did not seize it right then and there.

My very young grand daughter was dressed up in order to get her picture taken. I told her she looked so pretty that I wanted to be the first one to take her dancing. I had this thought of when she was older I would teach her to dance. She even asked me when we would go dancing together. But off she went with her mother to the picture studio and I had lost that moment of opportunity.

I thought quite a bit about that.

It reminded me of a story my own mother told me years ago. When she was quite young, her own grandfather C.V. Boden would let her dance with him on his feet. In her final days, this was one of her fond memories flashing back, making her smile.

Think about how huge that moment was in her life of dancing upon the shoes of her grandfather. That dance would be one of her enduring memories of him. It was the opportunity he took in order to leave a lasting impact on her life.

A simple dance between a grandfather and his granddaughter.

The next opportunity that comes around, I plan on dancing with this little girl. I will not miss the opportunity to leave a lasting memory of happiness. And I will work to be more cognizant of the many other opportunities that stand in front of me.

These are the same opportunities that stand in front of you. The people in your life, the ones you do and the ones you do not know. The opportunity exists to leave a lasting memory in their life. It is greater then all of the money in the world. Money eventually loses its value in our life. But a happy and lasting memory will last a lifetime. Those memories will be passed on from generation to generation.

Do not lose that opportunity in your life.

And stay inspired.

Melted Chocolate Bar

Percy Spencer

"Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man."
~ J. B. Priestley

There was a man many years ago who worked for Raytheon as an engineer. The year was 1945 and this former WWI Navy veteran by the name of Percy Spencer was already known for his knowledge of electronics.

One day Percy was playing with a microwave-emitting magnetron which was a device used in radars. All of a sudden he started feeling something odd in his pants pockets. It was a sizzling sensation which turned out to be chocolate bar starting to melt.

Through his reasoning, Percy supposed that is was microwave radiation of the magnetron to blame. This led Percy down the path of discovery that ended up with the invention of the microwave oven. Yes, that very same appliance all of us take for granted and probably couldn't imagine a world without.

All because of an accidental encounter with a melted chocolate bar.

Many times we each have an accidental encounter with opportunity.

It might be an accidental encounter with a person who turns out to be the connection to a new job. Or you are attending a gathering of people and accidentally encountering your future wife or husband.

There are a hundreds of accidental encounters in life that present opportunity for something great to happen in your life.

But two things need to happen when it comes to accidental encounters. Two things that are necessary for accidents to turn into opportunity.

The first is that you have to participate in life. In order for accidents to happen, you have to be out amongst others, among things happening, and risking yourself to the fact that these accidents will happen.

Sitting alone in your home, not attending that gathering, not taking a rafting trip; each of these may protect you from accidents. But each of them will keep you from experiencing life's opportunities.

Secondly, when the accident happens you need to acknowledge it and do something with it. There is an old saying which says "when opportunity knocks, you have to get up and answer the door."

When an accident occurs, there is opportunity to change your life. You have to recognize it and answer the call. You have to open the door and take hold of it.

In the end, accidental events are really just opportunity for greatness to occur in your life. It may not seem like it at the time. Percy could have fussed and complained about ruining a pair of pants, failing to recognize the true significance.

When accidents happen, look upon the event as an opportunity to turn it into something great. Take your life to a higher level accidentally and then realize it was not an accident after all.

Rather it was opportunity answered.

Stay inspired my friends!

Opportunity Steps Up

"No great man ever complains of want of opportunity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The following story is from an unknown author but illustrates how problems can be turned into opportunities. We each face obstacles in our lives which can be turned around with focus and persistence. The idea of being 'stubborn as an old mule' will get you results from time to time.

Once upon a time a farmer owned an old mule who tripped and fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule braying and was unable to figure out how to bring up the old animal. It grieved him that he could not pull the animal out. He'd been a good worker around the farm.

Although the farmer sympathized with the mule, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened. He had them help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and quietly put him out of his misery.

At first, the old mule was puzzled, but as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, he had a thought: he ought to shake off the dirt and step up. And he did just that.

"Shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up." Even though he took painful blows of dirt and fought panic, he just kept right on shaking it off and stepping up!

It wasn't long before the old mule stepped up and over the lip of that well. What could have buried him actually blessed him...all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

Change the circumstances and change your world. And stay inspired my friends!

Slow Down

"For fast-acting relief try slowing down." -Lily Tomlin

Okay, I admit that I recently cut my ear while shaving. It means that I will need to find my owners manual and relearn how to shave before I end up really hurting myself. But how in the world does one cut their ear while shaving their face?

It is actually quite easy from what I recently encountered. All that is required is a sharp razor, an early morning hour and just being in too big of a hurry.

Which brings me to the point of this article.

If we are in a hurry to get somewhere, to complete some task or to achieve some goal, chances are we are going to miss seeing all of the little things in life. We miss the fact that we have a razor in our hand swinging around our face. We 'race' down the road in our car, never seeing the small things along the way. We miss the short interactions with other people that can add up to a lot of great things.

In example, I have this issue when traveling on vacation. We jump in the car and my objective is to get from point 'A' to point 'B' as quickly as possible. Many times this results in not getting to see the cool things which lie between those two points. If we slow down and experience life, the result will be that we have fewer missed opportunities; the ones that are there but we fail to see.

Slow down and allow the details to become more clear in your life.

Slow down and realize that the razor in your hand could possibly cut your ear.

Stay inspired my friends!

Crisis Averted: EMCWorld 2013 - Day Three

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity." -John F. Kennedy

For each of the attendees to this year's EMCWorld, at some point in the day, week, month or year, a crisis will likely occur. While each of us in attendance are enjoying meeting new people, learning of new technologies and getting to test the newest gadgets, the business of our life continues.

There will be those issues back at work which draw you away from your temporary enjoyment of the conference. For me, there are those things that come up and I thoroughly enjoy jumping into the fire with my customers to help them get it resolved. This gives them the opportunity to get back to the conference and the enjoyment of it. I have had my share this week and to in the larger crowd of people the crisis may not seem such a big deal, but to the individual it is.

Your crisis might be deemed small or huge. It might involve keeping or losing your job. It might be a relationship or possibly mean life and death. Whatever the case, crisis will enter your life. How you deal with it determines your outcome on the other side. Some people do not handle it well and end up in worse condition while others are stronger and much better for the experience.

As you walk the convention halls of EMCWorld or even the halls of your life back home, know that there is hope, opportunity and greatness to be achieved through crisis. Come out on the other side renewed and greater for the experience.

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.

Did You Hear That

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." -Doug Larson

Wait, did you hear that?

Stop what you're doing, turn down the radio or TV and listen. At first it sounds like complete silence, but keep listening, the noises going on around you, the conversation in the distance, a plane going by overhead or maybe the bark of a dog.

It is difficult to hear all these different things when you do not stop and listen carefully.

Focus on the silence and think about when you are listening to someone speak to you. Are you focusing on what they are saying? If we don't listen carefully, we miss out on a chance to learn something new. J.W. Marriott, Jr. said and I paraphrase, "...one who doesn't listen well risks missing critical information, losing (or never winning) the confidence of the other and forfeiting opportunity."

There are times when I will sit in a quiet room and simply work on listening. Practicing how to focus on different sounds and trying to identify them. One of the things I work on is simply being still. It was said by someone that said, "...in order to say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time."

Listening to others comes very natural to some and can be a learned skill by others. But either way, listening is important to our daily lives. Try it some time - focus on the other person and absorb what they say, regardless of how slow or fast they may talk. Whether you agree or disagree with them, you may just learn or find new possibility.

Wait, I did hear that!

Stay inspired my friends.

Grab the Opportunity

Today is about opportunity, preparing for it, recognizing it and seizing it.

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
-Charles R. Swindoll

When you adopt a positive attitude in life, you are setting the stage for yourself. Being able to say, I'm ready "no matter what" is an important part of opportunity. Many of us tell ourselves the time is not right or begin to prepare for it once opportunity is upon us. By then it can be too late to grasp hold of it.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”
-Sarah Caldwell

And when we have prepared ourselves, opportunity will be so much easier to identify. So many times we are wrapped up in our own misfortune, that you don't recognize the fact that opportunity is staring you in the face. We expend all our energy on complaining that opportunity slips by before we notice it. Only to repeat the cycle of despair or self complaining.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
-Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)

For those that do prepare and see opportunity, they grasp it when it arrives. There is no need to think but only to react and take hold of it. When you have prepared yourself, you understand that regardless of whether you succeed or fail, you will survive and move on. Opportunity is only the vehicle of change. It doesn't predict success nor does it predict failure, it is simply movement in your life. Seize opportunity and let the movement change you.

“Life's up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals - Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want.”
-Marsha Sinetar

Opportunity always comes your way. It comes in life changing ways, it comes in small and seemingly insignificant ways. Your life is full of these and with a positive view on life, you can take on these opportunities and turn them into great things.

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Life will allow you the opportunity to have a great life. It takes an attitude of willingness to understand what it can do for you and those around you. Prepare for those opportunities, recognize them and take hold of every opportunity that comes before you. You will have a great life and you will make a great life for those around you.

Stay inspired my friends.

Did You Hear That

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.” ―Madeleine L'Engle

Wait, did you hear that? Stop what you're doing, turn down the radio or TV and listen. At first it sounds like complete silence. But keep listening, the noises going on around you, the conversation in the distance, a plane going by overhead or maybe the bark of a dog.

It is difficult to hear all of these different things when you don't stop and listen carefully. Focus on the silence and now think about when you are listening to someone speak to you. Are you focusing on what they are saying? If we don't listen carefully, we miss out on a chance to learn something new. J.W. Marriott, Jr. said and I paraphrase, "...one who doesn't listen well risks missing critical information, losing (or never winning) the confidence of the other and forfeiting opportunity."

There are times when I will sit in a quiet room and simply work on listening. Practicing how to focus on different sounds and trying to identify them. One of the things I work on is simply being still. It was said by someone that said, "...in order to say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time." Listening to others comes very natural to some and can be a learned skill by others. But either way, listening is important to our daily lives.

Try it some time - focus on the other person and absorb what it is they say. Regardless of how slowly or fast they may talk. Whether you agree or disagree with them, you may just learn or find new possibility. Wait, I did hear that!

Your Cornerstone

"Setting a firm foundation better prepares us for success." -Dean Sweetman

Here we are, half way through the month of April. In fact it is tax day here in the United States, the last day to complete and turn in our tax forms. With all that is going on, January 1st is quickly fading from our minds and slipping into the quiet past.

Even with the taxes and everything else going on, it is a day not much different from the day before. It is a day that is not much different from any other day as time passes by us. But it is a day that can have significance for every one of us if we stop and think about it.

If January 1st is the 'starting point' for what we want to accomplish this year, than have you? If you have not, than the importance of today is to get started; begin today. If you have not started to lay the foundation for what the year has to offer; begin today.

The opportunities that may come our way, the experiences we will encounter and success that is ours to achieve are built upon a firm base. When those April showers come our way and the flowers of May spring forth, will you be ready for it.

If January 1st was our day to start preparing, then March 20, the Spring equinox is our time to begin planting the seed of change. If you don't prepare yourself, when the time comes to plant it will be too late. You will miss opportunity to plant the seeds that will change your life.

You don't want to miss opportunities of rain and growth that will sustain you through the long hot days of summer. Without a strongly rooted vision, growth can not be sustained and the fall harvest of achievement becomes another lost opportunity. With another long cold winter to think of what may have been.

Don't wait to start setting in motion your foundation for a great year. If you haven't, then start today, start with change and start with belief that this year will be different.

Stay inspired my friends.

Leap Into Something New

"Doing is a quantum leap from imagining." -Barbara Sher

Today is February 29, 2012 and if things feel a little bit different, its because this only comes around once every four years. Leap year 2012 consists of 366 days, unlike a common year containing only 365 days. During these special years, an extra or intercalary day is added on February 29.

This happens of course nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year in our modern Gregorian Calendar. The reason behind all of this is to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. You see it takes roughly 365.242199 days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, for the Earth to circle one time around the Sun.

Since the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, without the extra day (Leap Day), we would lose nearly six hours from the calendar every year. So in only 100 years, the calendar would be off by almost 24 days.

There are three criteria for calculating when a Leap Year occurs;

• The year is evenly divisible by 4;
• If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
• The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.

After all of this talk regarding dates and hours and the Earth circling the Sun; what really matters?

What matters is that you have an extra day to do something special in life. You have an extra opportunity to dream big and act upon those dreams. Maybe it is a great time to refocus, reassess and reengage your life.

All of us are working towards having a great life. And this day, February 29, 2012 is the perfect chance for you to get moving forward again. It could end up being that perfect day if you let it.

Stay inspired my friends and check out more of my writing at Street Articles.

Unending Opportunity

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

We have all seen them at various times in our life. It might be in the middle of the night when we can't sleep so we turn on the television. They even creep into full page advertisements in your favorite magazine or newspaper. What I am referring to are those "opportunities of a lifetime" announcements.

Act now they scream out loudly. "Money making franchise opportunity of the century." "A 150 billion dollar business." "Big money in your spare time." The pitch is that this opportunity won't last much longer, so dial that number now.

And I guess the numbers can't be wrong. Infomercials, direct-response TV marketing as it's formally known, are expected to rise to a record $174 billion, by 2014, according to Yoram Wurmser of Direct Marketing Assn. So there are a lot of people jumping at the opportunity that isn't supposed to last.

Their marketing pitch is pretty powerful to say the least. Something else that is pretty powerful is love. Love is not an opportunity that is a limited time offer. Love is an opportunity that is never ending.

As I wrote in my book Love Is, "love is eternal." It is never-ending, unchanging and can never run empty. You have no way of using up or consuming all of God’s love. There is no fuel gauge on that love, no gas station in which to fill back up with more love. It is there, always and overflowing in your life.

So take the opportunity to find and know how powerful love can be in your own life. It is a great thing to have and will help you achieve your best life. Stay inspired my friends.