100 New Steps

“Normal is an ideal. But it’s not reality. Reality is brutal, it’s beautiful, it’s every shade between black and white, and it’s magical. Yes, magical. Because every now and then, it turns nothing into something.” ― Tara Kelly

Life has its moments for all of us. I like to call it 'going through a season' to describe these changes. And like all moments it might be momentary or permanent in the impact it has on our daily life.

There is nothing normal in life. It is just life.

For me, I was able to complete my latest book and make it available to the public. It is a collection of my writings called 100 NEW STEPS, available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions.

Yes, I would appreciate your comments on my new book, but I will say it was an effort to get this book out due to changes in my job. A lot more travel, responsibility and exciting changes now that EMC has been acquired by Dell Technologies. Exciting changes, exciting opportunity, but a new season is upon me.

And quite actually, I am fine with all of it.

What it effectively means is less time for writing each day. Less time to spend writing things that might have a positive impact on each of you. So it was important for me to get my latest book out there to help fill the gaps in my daily writing.

It means I need to find time to continue writing my next book, a semi-fictional story tentatively titled SEAT 12B. I have set my own deadline of spring 2017, just in time for the travel season. It is a story I am sure you will enjoy if I can adjust to my new season.

I will adjust as we all do.

Changes are going to occur for all of us. Job, relationships, money, health, and just about any other possibility can alter what we believe our 'normal' life is. So it becomes important to accept the changes, adjust to them and keep a positive outlook on your new life experiences.

What my hope for each of you is that you make the adjustment. That each of you can find the strength to enjoy your new normal. And that whatever comes your way, life will remain an event you enjoy because life is great gift we have been given.

May all your moments be more joyous than not.

Stay inspired my friends!

Let It Go

"You cannot expect to achieve new goals or move beyond your present circumstances unless you change." - Les Brown

A single act that occurs to you can set the tone for your entire day, if you choose to let it. Those seemingly small 'slights' are thrust upon you by another person such as getting cut off in traffic.

This happened to me recently at a two lane right-turn when a person in the righthand turn lane decided to get in a hurry. They moved over into my lane as I was turning and nearly hit me. Now out of all the articles I've written, life happens and you should just let it go. But of course I could not do that for a few minutes.

How could this person do this? What a jerk and all those other thoughts developed in my mind. Physically I could tell it was upsetting me but I identified it and began a series of thought processes to bring me back from that low point.

First identify that is has upset and is effecting you.

Secondly, ask yourself why you are reacting in this manner.

Third, begin to think about how you are going to let it effect the rest of your day.

If you decide to hold onto it and let it fester, the rest of the day is going to be miserable. so let it go and chalk it up to simple human interaction. There was no real harm, so no real foul and you both move on. The problem is if you do not, it will impact how you deal with others during the day and can have disastrous results.

Letting it go will free you to move on and have a productive day.

Stay inspired my friends!

Superstition Mountains

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." - Bertrand Russell

In the heat of an Arizona summer, one thing remains present in the not too far off in the distance. The towering figure of The Superstition Mountains looms greatly across the scrub and cactus landscape. These mountains seem to float on the water logged mirage which stretches across the horizon. These mountains are named for reasons which have only small amounts of fact in them.

It is in the lack of knowledge where superstition can grow. Ignorance can lead to fear which in the end creates an inability to move forward in your life. It is in superstition that fear will feed upon itself and upon you.

In order to move ahead in life, one has to get beyond the fear of whatever invades your life. You must get beyond the superstition that holds you back from achieving more. It is an obstacle not easily overcome but it can be overcome.

Once you loosen those chains of fear, you will be free to overcome the mountain of doubt in your mind.

You will conquer those mountains and the view you will see is astounding.

Stay inspired my friends!

Finding Home

“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

The lives of people are impacted by the circumstances they are born into, the choices they might have made, or by the changing conditions of society. And the decisions we make create the person we become.

We can become bound by our roots.

The life we come from when born and our ancestry can shape us tremendously. How we move through life and the stakes we place in the ground as we grow older can cause a settling of our footing. We become rooted believing nothing else need be done.

If we can establish a firm footing, a comfortable hold on the life we live, we can also use those feet to examine and find where we come from. To help confirm or complete the circle of who we are, we search for home.

To find who we were before who we are now.

I have a story of an American, a long time ago refugee from Hungary who escaped along with his father and brother in 1957. A secret escape during the Hungarian Revolution as the Soviets moved to crush any and all opposition.

His mother had died some short years previous to this escape to freedom. His belief for so many years had been that his mother's family wanted nothing to do with his father, brother or himself. This was a story strangely perpetrated by his father's new wife.

Reasons are often never understood.

From that early February day in 1957, he never had contact with his mother's family in Hungary. It included a few years of no contact prior to leaving the country and emigrating to a new life and country.

Yet the questions lingered for many years as this boy grew into a smart, strong and successful man. He was like many other people working hard to build a life, raise a family and reach his dreams and goals.

Questions left unanswered.

In mid-1998, he and his wife made a trip back to Hungary; a journey of discovery and sentimentality. He wanted to find and visit the grave site of his mother who had died at the young age of thirty from cancer. He had lost his mother at the age of seven and this trip home was to come a bit closer to her memory.

The trip was guided by a cousin from his father's side of the family. They found their way to the cemetery and to the office for information of where the grave was located. After forty years, to see his mother's resting place, they found their way to the grave site.

Surprise hidden by the many years.

What they encountered was a well-tended plot and markers for her parents who had died many years after her. With a lack of knowing how or why the grave sites were so well tended, back to the office they went to find out who might have been responsible for the grave; an age-old practice is to pay a fee every 10 years.

The office was only able to provide an address in a nearby town, but no name. With this information they set off to discover an answer to who could have been tending to his mother's grave. Eventually they found themselves parked across the street from the address given to them at the cemetery office.

Would they want to see me.

From here I allow the man's wife to carry on the story.

His cousin got out of the car and started walking across the street to two women who were talking by the driveway gate. My husband remained in the car and I asked, astonished, "Why aren't you going with him?" and the response was "I'm not sure they will want to see me.

The story he had known all those years was that his mother's family had not and would not want anything to do with him.

I said "Of course they will want to see you!" and urged him to go. He slowly got out of the car, then started across the street. By this time his cousin had introduced himself and was explaining who we were. I heard a shriek and my husband started running across the street.

One of the women was his aunt, who was only seven years old when he was born. She had babysat the young boys when their mother was sick and for a short time after she died. There were tears all around and hugs galore.

As this man's wife explained, "People used to ask us 'Why Hungary?' I daresay many people cannot possibly understand what it means to have given up your homeland because it wasn't safe to stay, and the resulting longing for family, the sounds of your native tongue, and connections with your earliest memories."

We can establish roots without getting stuck in the hardened clay. We can go home once again and find answers to whom we have become.

Keep seeking home, keep seeking who you are and stay inspired my friends.

Stay inspired my friends!

A Stalk Of Fennel

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchet

There is an old Greek mythology story of how man was given fire. It is the story of Prometheus and his yearning to help mankind in spite of the ruling gods.

Prometheus would say, "Ah, how very poor and wretched they were!" He found them living in caves and in holes of the earth, shivering with the cold because there was no fire, dying of starvation, hunted by wild beasts and by one another.

Their lives were not a well lived life.

To accomplish his task, Prometheus created a distraction amongst the gods. He took a stalk of fennel with its center filled with a dry, soft pith which would burn slowly and could keep on fire a long time and stole fire from Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire.

When he returned to the place where immortal men lived, he found them cold and damp in their caves and it was here that he built a fire for them. He then began to teach them how to warm themselves and how to build other fires from the burning coals. Soon all men and women gathered and were warm and happy.

All were thankful for the wonderful gift.

It was not long until they learned to cook their food and to eat their food like men instead of like beasts. They began to leave their wild and savage ways. Instead of hiding in dark places, they came out into the light; into the bright sunlight, and were happy because life had been given to them.

We too can light a fire for other people.

When we inspire others to greater things, the fire we set ablaze in their hearts will warm all of life around them. We can carry the fire to others by the kindness, the compassion and the desire to make life better for all of those around us.

We can be the ember from the stalk of fennel which brings others out in to the goodness of light and a well lived life.

Stay inspired my friends!

What Seeds Are You Planting

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."
- Og Mandino

Yesterday was an opportunity to do something good.
You had an opportunity to plant a thought of kindness.
You had an opportunity to do something good for another person.
You had an opportunity to set the world in motion towards something better.

That same opportunity exists today.
You can plant a thought of kindness.
You can do something good for another person.
You can set the world in motion towards something better.

Plant today and harvest the goodness tomorrow.

Stay inspired my friends.

The Biggest Fish Ever

“The hype cheapens the hyped, as right things are then made wrong by exaggeration.” ― Criss Jami

ex·ag·ger·a·tion: A statement that represents something as better or worse than it really is. The action of making statements that represent something as better or worse than it really is. Other words one could use are; overstatement, overemphasis, magnification, amplification, aggrandizement.

Is exaggeration the simple method of trying to get your point across?

Most of the time it is used to take an innocuous event and describe it in such a way as to prove a point or state a position? In many cases, doing so can make you look dishonest and manipulative to those who see through your exaggeration.

The use of it often times will backfire, causing people to dismiss your point even if it might be true. Yet many times exaggeration is used because the actual truth is not supported by the actual truth. Using hyperbole might create a certain air of belief but in fact it is only a sly attempt to deceive.

Do you post outrageous memes on social media in order to make your political point?
Do you declare every restaurant or meal you have had the most awesome of all?
Do you see your belief as the one truth of all the truth out there?

How many more times will it take before people simply start tuning out and stop listening to you? Will you ever have the capability to give people a reason to change their minds when all you do is bombard them with the hyperbole of exaggerated truth?

In the end, you are more trustworthy if you are more accurate in your stated evaluations. People will listen and consider your argument more often instead of tuning out. You will become better understood in the long run. A simple statement as close to the truth as you can make it will do more than the creation of noise.

Stay inspired my friends!

Who Is My Neighbor

“Neighbors are given to us on the same basis as we are given our families. There is no element of choice involved - none at all.” ― Alexander McCall Smith

Just yesterday, September 11, 2016, a remembrance occurred of tragic and horrifying events which took place fifteen years prior. The 9/11/01 date will remain etched in the minds of many Americans as the day in which the unthinkable occurred.

Nearly 3000 innocent people lost their lives in the initial events and scores of others who have and will likely perish as a result from injuries and exposure to toxins in the attacks carried out. This is something the history books will carry for a long time.

There were hundreds of stories of heroism by the first responders, people within the sites and those who came to the scenes to help those in need. There are also stories of complete strangers helping others in the exodus from the sites of tragedy.

People treating others as their neighbor.

As you read the stories of those fleeing lower Manhattan as the towers began to crumble, your instincts are to run as fast and as far as you can. The mass exodus of people trying to find an escape from the thick and suffocating debris was human survival on display.

Yet one can see in the still images, the videos and stories of people assisting others in their escape. Helping to carry, provide a shoulder or cover them in protection from the fallout. There were stories of people in distress being pulled up and into the safety of closed buildings. Others were sheltered or literally covered by a stranger behind cars to protect them in their distress. So many small acts of kindness among a sea of people who normally pass by each other on a normal day never taking notice.

Who is my neighbor than?

Look around you and you everywhere you look you will find your neighbor. As you drive to work this morning, the guy with the flat tire along the road is your neighbor. The mom trying to get her kids and groceries into her vehicle is your neighbor. Even the broken and homeless on the street who may only want money to support an addiction is your neighbor.

Individually acting as a neighbor, we may never solve the problem, but we can make a small difference. All of us acting together as neighbors, we can certainly do a lot to make a bigger difference in the lives of others. So who is your neighbor? Just open your eyes and you will see them everywhere.

Stay inspired my friends!

Where Does The Buck Stop

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change." - Robert Anthony

When things go wrong, some people will refuse to accept the blame or consider themselves to be at fault. They prefer to blame external factors, forces, people, situations, or circumstances.

In extreme cases we may deny that there is a problem. In other cases, we may try to reduce the reasons for its severity or as for our involvement by assigning the blame elsewhere so that fingers are not pointed at us.

There is an old saying, "When you point a finger at somebody you point three fingers at yourself."

More times then not, the idea that three fingers are pointed back at you is a subtle reminder that you may need to accept responsibility.

Someone who carried responsibility was United States President Harry S Truman. A sign on his desk was there to remind him. It simply said, "The buck stops here." There was no one else to blame. As president, he could not kick the blame higher.

This is not the case with the rest of us.

We tend to assign blame to others. Yet why do we do it? Are we taught to do so? How does it affect us? How does is keep us from becoming better individuals?

There are three things you can think about when it comes to stopping the blaming and accepting responsibility for your life;

1. Learn to accept and value yourself just the way you are now. Even though it continues to be important to maintain goals for your future, self-esteem is how you can evaluate yourself here in the present.

2. Learn that people should not be blamed for their human frailties. Meaning people will have faults, no one is perfect. So don't blame people simply for not being perfect.

3. Learn how to acquire and appreciate positive reinforcement. When you treat others with dignity and respect, it is very likely you will receive positive treatment in return.

There are many other ideas on how to accept responsibility in your life.

There could be others at fault at various times, but be quick to understand your part in all that happens. You will find that you learn more and take away more from the situation then would have occurred by blaming others. Blame does not advance our lives, it only holds us back.

Assume responsibility for your life and take it farther than before.

Stay inspired my friends.

Labor Day Affair

"If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend." - Doug Larson

Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894. Labor Day also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans, and is celebrated with parties, parades and athletic events.

But yet, there are many who work on this day so that many of us can enjoy the day off.

So thank you to all of the hard working people out there. Thank you for being a part of what makes life great.

Stay inspired my friends.

This Week Was

Try to make at least one person happy every day. If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word. If you cannot speak a kind word, think a kind thought. Count up, if you can, the treasure of happiness that you would dispense in a week, in a year, in a lifetime! - Lawrence G. Lovasik

It was a very long week for me as business kept me from having the time to write. I cherish being able to write every day and connect with people through my articles.

Sometimes it just doesn't happen.

But I do take the time when I am out at the store, walking into an office for a meeting, or talking with others to leave them with hopefully one good thing.

Each of us can this.

Every single day you have the opportunity to impact someone's life in a positive fashion. A smile, a good word, a helping hand or simply listening to them.

Every good action counts.

Try to be the type of person who lifts, encourages and makes the day a little bright for someone else. Your own day will be brightened if you do.

Stay inspired my friends!

Beyond Mediocrity

“Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

Do not strive for mediocrity.

Strive for greatness beyond what others may do.

You can achieve so much more.

Stay inspired my friends!

Credit Card Theft

"You want 21 percent risk free? Pay off your credit cards." - Andrew Tobias

I was recently defrauded of my credit card in a local eating establishment, or at least I believe that is where it occurred. I have since been cleared and made whole by my financial institution.

So what could go wrong?

As it is, you've been out shopping during the day spending part of that bonus from work. It is much easier to carry a credit card rather then cash. So conveniently we pull out our credit cards.

You head home and while thinking about it over night, you decide that to really go back and get that one other item. So two days later you head back out to the store, pick up the item and attempt to use your credit card.

But your credit card is denied.

The card is over its limit but you are sure there is plenty of room left. You call the credit card company and find that several unauthorized purchases have occurred. None of these purchases were yours and now you have joined the ranks of credit card theft.

Its hurtful, its stressful and its just a big pain.

I have had this happen along with identify theft some years ago. I have known people who have had the same things happen as well. So what can you do to limit the probability of this happening?

Use cash only is the safest answer.

But reality means this will not always work due to credit card requirements for many things such as rental cars, hotels, etc. And a search of the internet can provide a vast array of solutions and tips to safe guard your credit card.

Utmost in all of the rules is to safe guard, your credit card number. Anyone who gets this number can pretty much buy what they want...so protect that number.

Ensure you are safely purchasing both online (internet) and offline (store). Check to ensure the website is secure and look for that 'closed lock' at the bottom of the screen although crooks are pretty sophisticated these days.

And don't send your card information via email, this is terribly insecure and can be intercepted.

With offline (store) purchases, keep an eye on the waiter or salesperson to ensure they are not writing down your card number. And last, try not to give out your card number over the phone unless absolutely necessary.

Be wary of identity theft by keeping track of your identification papers, etc. While protecting yourself, do the following;

- Keep PIN numbers secret and don't let your small children type them in at the ATM.
- Keep photocopies of the front and back of credit/debit cards...but not in your wallter.
- Cross check your credit card statements and report any discrepancies immediately.
- In the event of credit card loss or theft, report it immediately.

Most of all, be alert.

It isn't a huge effort or task to protect yourself. Just stay alert when using and taking care of its usage. Doing so will help prevent the grief you'll endure otherwise.

Stay inspired my friends and be safe!