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!

North Platte Canteen

North Platte Canteen

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo F. Buscaglia

What can love of a fellow person do for their life?

Watch and listen how people in an unknown place touched the lives of so many young men. It began with one person deciding to move forward in care of others.

It turned into a human event nearly unparalleled since.

Stay inspired my friends!

Green Means Go

"In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive." – Lee Iacocca

When an economic downturn occurs, is it a moment to pull back and wait it out, hunkered down in your cave?

When things swing against you, it the time to stop all you are doing with a hope time will not be lost?

No way, because now is the time to keep moving forward in your life. Of course we do not move in a "willy-nilly" fashion, all caution thrown to the wind. Bad economic times or tough circumstances dictate that we become more focused in moving toward our goals.

The light is solid green and your movement should be moving forward.

To wait now would mean lost time and wasted opportunity. The changing dynamics of life will forever be out of your control. By continuing to move forward, new and unique opportunity will be found that otherwise would not have been realized.

There will be rises and falls in your journey, that much is true. Yet the destination will never be reached if you sit quietly in the darkness. Hunter Thompson said, "buy the ticket, take the ride" and it means to stay engaged in life everyday, no matter what happens.

The light is solid green, what are you waiting for?

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!