Smell the Roses

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” - Henri Matisse


“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the flower leaves on the heel of the one that crushed it.” - Unknown


“Kind hearts are the gardens,kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the flowers, kind deeds are the fruits. Take care of your garden and keep out the weeds. Fill it with sunshine, kind words and kind deeds.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


“Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.” - Unknown


“If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today.” - Joyce Chapman


“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” - Joseph Addison

Flowers can do so much in our lives. They bring happiness and joy to anyone that takes the time to enjoy them.

Stop and smell the flowers along the path of your life. Learn from their beauty and let that beauty shine through you.

Stay inspired my friends!

Planting Now for a Later Harvest

"It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn." ~ B. C. Forbes

The fall will arrive quickly and we will wonder how the year went by so quickly away from us? It will seem like only yesterday that we were celebrating the new year, full of hope and wonder? Will we have wasted our days daydreaming or will we have prepared those dreams and planted them in the spring?

When September takes hold of our days, the harvest will be upon us.

Those seeds of hope and want were planted in great soil in the spring of the year. Will we have carefully watered and tended to them into the summer months, knowing our expectation of a bountiful harvest? And when fall arrives, will we reap the reward of our hard work?

When we harvest that bounty, will we store those collected achievements to carry us through the winter months. For it is the harvest that gives us yearning and desire for new dreams when another new year approaches.

Are you acting upon your dreams and planting them with actions?

Will you tend to them and move boldly to ensure your dreams take root and flourish? If not, you will wonder where the time went when harvest arrives and there is nothing for you to reap. Or you may wonder why your harvest is so small. For the time was wasted and a cold winter will approach and want will take over your days.

We are now in the time of planting and tending to our dreams.

The actions you take now, throughout the summer and into the fall will prove to be worthy. Spring time is the time to begin movement. Start now, preparing, moving, and bringing your dreams to life. Spring is a great time to plant seeds and the time to take action upon your dreams is now. The great harvest this fall will be the reward for all of your hard work.

Stay inspired my friends.

Reaching the Moon

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, September 12, 1962

Trying to achieve great things in life is not easy to do. It takes faith in oneself, hard work and the ability to adapt to the changing circumstances. There are those who win the lottery or a huge inheritance, but the vast majority have to work long and hard for it.

People such as Chris Gardner, going from nothing to having all he may ever want. Or others such as the actor Jim Carrey, software giant Larry Ellison, media personality Oprah Winfrey or famed chef Gordon Ramsay.

Even the famous Rockefeller family had to start somewhere as did John D. Rockefeller whose full salary for his first three months' work was $50. This is a very modest $1000 a month in terms of salary in the year 2009.

When you read stories of where these and other successful people started, you begin to realize each started with only a dream of 'achieving the moon' in their lives. Each found their own version of the moon as they achieved the goals set.

You can get to your own moon by starting with a belief in yourself. Reach for your dream by placing one foot in front of the other in movement. Eventually you will find the earth leaving quickly behind you as the moon begins to draw closer.

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!