Blessings

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments, but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

 ~Joseph Addison 

The Strength Of Surrender

Once there was a woman who spent her whole life climbing a very high mountain. She began as a child, and she could not remember a time before the mountain.

Year after year she would ascend the steep cliffs, and in the process she became very good at the motion of climbing. The muscles in her legs and her back grew very strong, and after a while, climbing felt as natural to her as breathing.

As time passed, and she went higher and higher, she didn't even have to try and climb anymore - her body did it automatically. At last, one day, the woman reached the top of the mountain. She was overjoyed with her achievement, and couldn't wait to start out on the next portion of her travels, and to conquer her next
mountain.

As she looked over the horizon, she saw a beautiful blue lake, stretching sideways as far as her eye could see. But being a climber all her life, the woman had only lived on the mountains, so she had never seen a lake, and if fact, did not even know what a lake was.

She watched the strange expanse before her and concluded that it must be some unusual kind of blue mountain. Since the only way to continue her journey was to cross the odd-looking blue form, she decided she had to "climb the lake". So the mountain woman walked up to the water, and began to try to "climb the lake" with the same motions she'd used to climb the mountain. At first she could not understand why she was not making any progress, and, in fact, was exhausting herself.  She mustered all the energy in her body and tried to "climb" even harder, placing one leg in front of the other, using her hands to try to grasp the "blue rocks". But her efforts were useless. She kept falling over, and wasn't going anywhere.

Just about this time, when the mountain woman felt like giving up, she noticed a person floating on top of the blue lake, gently gliding his body through the water with the slightest movement of his arms and legs. "What are you doing my friend?" he called out to her.  "What does it look like?" she answered, her face flush with embarrassment. "I'm climbing the lake".

"Good woman," the man of the lake replied, "don't you know that you can't cross a lake by climbing it? The only way to travel through water is to swim".

"But I am such a marvelous climber!" the mountain woman insisted. "I've spent my whole life learning to climb. I can climb any mountain. I can reach the top of any peak. Surely there is some way I can climb the lake."

"I'm sure you are an excellent climber," the man of the lake answered politely. "But that skill won't help you here in the water. It took one kind of wisdom to get you to the top of the mountain - you had to make your power stronger than the mountain. Now you need to learn another kind of wisdom to get across the lake - you need to surrender to the power of the water and allow its force to be stronger than you. You don't have to try hard anymore. In fact, the less you try the better you will do!"

And so it was that the man of the lake taught the woman of the mountain how to swim. At first, she splashed and thrashed around in the water, for she was accustomed to using her very strong energy in her climbing. But her teacher was very patient, and she learned how to float on the water's surface, and allow the waves and wind to carry her gently forward until she was hardly doing anything at all.

And that's how the mountain woman learned that the strength of surrender is just as powerful as the strength of pushing forward.

Who Do You Invite In?

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said, "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."  
 
"Is the man of the house home?" they asked. "No," she said, "he's out." 

"Then we cannot come in," they replied. 
 
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened and he said
"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!" So the woman went out and invited the men in.

"We do not go into a house together," they replied. "Why is that?" she wanted to know. One of the old men explained, "His name is Wealth," said pointing to one of his friends, and said, pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."  
 
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed.   "How nice!" he said. "since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come in and fill our home with wealth!"   

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"   

Their daughter-in-law was listening from another corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"    

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."    

The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."   

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other two also got up and followed him. Surprised, the woman asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, why are you coming in?"   

The old men replied together: " If you had invited Wealth or Success,   the other two of us would have stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is Wealth and Success!!!"

The lesson is simple... who are you inviting into your life? 

Keep Learning

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity.  In the end there are no certain answers.

~ Matina Horner

Perspective

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.


~Richard Bach

IQ?

It is not "IQ" but "I Will" that is important in education.

~Author unknown but greatly appreciated

Effort

How much time you put in is not nearly as important as what you put into the time.

~Author unknown but greatly appreciated

Others...

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is comprised of others.

~J.A. Holmes

Character

Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time. 

~Elbert Hubbard

Communication

Communication is like a dance. One person takes a step forward; the other takes one back. Even one misstep can land both on the floor in a tangle of confusion.

~Oprah

Visionary Companies

What is a visionary company? Visionary companies are premier institutions-the crown jewels- in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a long track record of making a significant impact on the world around them. The key point is that a visionary company is an organization-an institution.  All individual leaders, no matter how charismatic or visionary, eventually die; and all visionary products and services-all "great ideas"-eventually become obsolete.  Indeed, entire markets can become obsolete and disappear.  Yet visionary companies prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product-life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders.

~James C. Collins and Jerry I Porras

Give Recognition

Fran Tarkenton, the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback, once called a play that required him to block rushing tacklers. It's important to note that quarterbacks almost never block.  They're usually greatly outweighed by the other players and so blocking exposes them to the risk of severe injury.

But the team was behind, and a surprise play was needed. Tarkenton went in to block, and the runner scored a touchdown.  The Vikings won the game.

Watching the game films with the team the next day, Tarkenton expected a big pat on the back for what he had done.  It never came.  After the meeting, Tarkenton approached the coach, Bud Grant and asked, "You saw my block, didn't you  Coach? How come you didn't say anything about it?"

Grant replied, "Sure, I saw the block. It was great.  But you're always working hard out there,  Fran.  I figured I didn't have to tell you."

"Well," Tarkenton replied, "if you ever want me to block again you do!"

The lesson here is that we need to recognize people's efforts.  A common mistake is to assume that because someone is a strong, accomplished or confident person, they don't need the feedback or compliments; they do!  Everyone needs to know when they have done well.