Gratitude

Gratitude - noun. the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Today is my birthday and this is the one word that comes to mind today.  I have much to be thankful for.  I have three children that are all excelling in their chosen majors and are becoming the best versions of themselves that they can be.  All three are making exceptional grades, working part-time jobs, and enjoying the good times of college years while making responsible life choices.  All three are pushing themselves in majors that are not the easiest. 

I can be thankful for having a job, a roof over my head, a loving wife and a dog that loves me unconditionally.  I can be thankful for all my family that I love with all my heart.  I can be thankful to all my social media friends that took time out of their busy lives to wish me a happy birthday.  

I have so much to be thankful for, but the other part of gratitude is the readiness to return kindness.  I try to take time to thank every single person that wishes me well wish and thank them.  To me, that is more important.  I want them to know that I am heartfelt thankful for the wishes.

Now let's spin this a little.  Let's think of a world where everyone lives with gratitude.  Where everyone is ready to give kindness, and then ready to return kindness.  God tells us that each and everyone of us is made in His likeness.  So then, why is there so much hate and anger in the world?  Why can't this world rally in kindness?  

You may ask what is there to be thankful for.  For one, the fact that you are able to read this for gives you so many thing to be thankful for.  You are alive.  You are able to read.  You have means for social media.  Life's too short to look at what we don't have when we can be grateful for what we do have.  

Stay positive and be a living example of gratitude.

Controllables

Watching the inauguration events and seeing how people are reacting to reminds me a book that I read by Brian Cain.  Cain talked about the three things in life that you can control, and he called it "Controlling your APE."  The only three things we can control in any situation are our Attitude, our Performance and our Effort.

Attitude.  I am a big believer in the power of a positive attitude and positive energy.  Your life's fuel is the attitude and energy that you are giving off.  I truly believe that this energy is contagious and what kind of energy you give off is what the people around you will be fueled with.  In my breakthrough year, I have vowed to surround myself with positive fuel in the form of the people that I surround myself with, the books I read, and the situations that present themselves to me.  Every situation has positive in it, but you have to be ready to find it.  Each day the choice is ours, we have the freedom and decision to wake up in a good mood or a bad mood.  I am going to tell you that life is way to short to waste an ounce on negativity.  Start by having a three to one rule,  for every negative situation, present your self with three positive ones.  You control it.

Performance.  Each of us can control our performance.  We may not be able to control the outcomes, but we can control how we perform.  Some may ask, how do we control our performance?  We control our performance by the process we use to get to that point.  How are we preparing for every situation?  We can control the process and we can control our preparation.  And once in the situation, our attitude and effort will play into that process and preparation and determine our performance.  When all these worlds collide and you have the right attitude, you have prepared as best you can, and the effort you put into it will set you up for the best performance possible and that is what we can control.

Effort.  We have all seen the rewards of hard work in different aspects of our life.  Effort is something that we can control.  Derek Jeter once said, "There may be people that are more talented than you, but there is no reason for anyone to work harder than you."  Other E's that play into this are energy and emotions.  Effort is controllable, so don't ever let anyone work/play harder than you.

We need to focus on controlling the controllable.  We cannot always control what goes on around us, but we can 100% control how we react to it.  Stay positive, prepare for your best performance, and always give max effort and we align ourselves for the best possible outcomes.  Don't let others control the three things that you can.  How are you going to feed your APE?

Be the Light

BE THE LIGHT

This idea started for me during the Christmas season. We were given a message on Being the Light for someone else.  We were given the light at the end of service to serve as a reminder to us.

Then after the National Championship football game, Dabo Swinney, talked about "the light inside them shining brighter than the light shining on them."

In Matthew 5:16 we are told, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

What is this "light" that everyone keeps talking about?  It keeps throwing itself into my life and projecting itself to me.  But what does it mean?   What does it mean specifically for me?  

In my previous post, I talked about what 2017 means to me.  We are all given to us a purpose, a meaning in life.  That purpose resides in me, in each one of us.  That purpose gives us a meaning. It is the light within each of us.  But just like any other light, the light needs some juice to shine.  It cannot shine without it being turned on.  Once that light is turned on, it is seen by others we come in contact with.  They can use your light as navigation.  You can be there light.  

It can be little things or it can be big things.  Be the good in someone's life, shine your light on other's.  Let them walk in your light.  Before you know it, their own light will be shining and making a difference in others' lives.

Still today, I walk around with that light in my pocket as a reminder to "Be the Light." (Just have to be careful because lights can break, but the reminder is more significant for me.)  But it's not that light that is trying to do good.  It has to be direct and intentional.  You too can be the light.  Today's message was "Yearn for More".  What this message meant to me, was to yearn for more for myself, but also to yearn for more for everyone that you may come in contact with.  

January 13th

Today marks the 13th day of January.  I was meant to start this at the New Year but got around to it now.  2017 marks a big year for me.  On New Year's at Midnight, myself and some of my friends revealed our One Word (for more info go to www.getoneword.com) for the year.  My word is BREAKTHROUGH.  I believe that this is going to be the year for me.  I believe that big things are going to come my way this year.  I believe that doors will be opened for me.

The first thing that I am going to do to make this successful is surround myself with the type of people that win.  By winning, I don't mean games, but I mean winning Life.  This year, I vow not to surround myself with the type of people that breathe negative energy into me.  (Jon Gordon calls these people Energy Vampires.)  Now this doesn't mean at all that I am going to ditch everything that has gotten me to this point of my life.  What it does mean is that I am going to breathe positive energy into them, invite them on my bus, and open the door.  But with that, we don't fuel our bus with negative energy, but the most positive energy that you can find.  If you can't find the positive fuel, don't come on the bus.

Gradually, people will notice a change.  I am not saying that I have all of the right answers, but I want to breathe Life into teams, companies, and individuals.  That is my goal.  My Life Word, also based on a book that Jon Gordon help write, is Life.  I want to live, but I also want to breathe life into everything that I come across.  Life is love with energy.   Everyday this year, I am going to wake up and tell myself that this is my day to win and no one can win it for me but ME.  Some of the things that I am doing, no one will ever know about.  Other things, I am hoping, will breathe the kind of Life and Energy into others that I have received from others.  I am not an expert by any means, but I take the proven strategies of experts like Jon Gordon, Joshua Medcalf, Brian Cain, and some close friends and develop my own way to breathe LIFE into others.  Let's LIVE in 2017 so that we can all have a BREAKTHROUGH.