Collecting Bad Wines

Learning to let go of the small stuff, to live in the moment and to really appreciate the people in our lives are all valuable lessons that may take us years to learn. For Ric Elias however, the change was easy. As he saw his life flash before his eyes while his plane was about to crash in the Hudson River in January 2009, he decided never to postpone his life again.... He decided to drink the good wine and only collect the bad. 

What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time

http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html?ga_source=embed

PASSION

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.” – T. Alan Armstrong

“A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” – John Maxwell

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” – Bertrand Russell
“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.” – Angela Monet
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Attributed to Howard Thurman
“You taught me to be nice, so nice that now I am so full of niceness, I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion.” – Garrison Keillor

“Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.” – Blaise Pascal

“Chase your passion, not your pension.” – Denis Waitley

Quotations – Opportunity Dances with...

“Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity.” -- Robert Schuller

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want." -- Ben Stein

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor." -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision." -- The Principles of Psychology 1890

“The inability to make a decision is often described as patience – or ‘waiting on God.’” -- Dan Miller

“There is no more miserable human being than the one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” -- William James

Poetry

Happy Friday!

Here is a lovely poem written by Sarah Kay, a young poet and performer from New York. I love this poem because it's passionate, sweet and very real! In her message, Sarah reminds us that in spite of life's hardships, character, perseverance and our connections with others will always see us through…especially that special connection that we have with our parents.

Enjoy and count your blessings!

If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she’s gonna call me Point B. Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

And I’m going to paint the solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire Universe before she can say, “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach, but getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself.

'Cause no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal, believe me, I’ve tried.

"And baby", I'll tell her, "don't keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke, so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him, or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him".

But I know she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay. There’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix, but that's what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it.

I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the Galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my Mom taught me that there'll be days like this...

"There'll be days like this" my Mama said, when you open your hands to catch, and wind up with only blisters and bruises, when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly, and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape, when your boots will fill with rain and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment, and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say "Thank you".
'Cause there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

You will put the win in win some, lose some, you will put the star in starting over, and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called Life.

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive, but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar, it can crumble so easily, but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

"Baby" I'll tell her "remember your Mama is a Warrior, and your Papa is a Warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes, who never stops asking for more.

Remember that good things come in threes, and so do bad things, and always apologize when you've done something wrong, but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing, and when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door, and offer you handouts on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your Mother.

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html

Tips to unlock your creativity

From the 48days newsletter...always informative and inspiring:

1. You need to “sit” longer.

2. Get away from your normal routine.

3. Go for a long walk, exercise more

4. Take an art (woodworking, sculpture, gardening) class

5. Put yourself around people who are high performers.

Henry Ford once said he didn’t want executives who had to work all the time. He insisted that those who were always in a flurry of activity at their desks were not being the most productive. He wanted people who would clear their desks, prop their feet up and dream some fresh dreams. His philosophy was that only he who has the luxury of time can originate a creative thought.

Wow! When’s the last time your boss told you to quit working and do more dreaming? Unfortunately, our culture glamorizes being under time pressure. Having too much to do with too little time is a badge of “success.” Or is it?

If you are feeling stuck, your solution may not be in doing more, but in taking a break from the “busyness” of life. Want to be more productive — try doing less. Go “sit” somewhere for a while!”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau

Quotations - Begin Again

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.” -- Rainer Maria Rilke

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.  The worst thing you can do is nothing." -- Theodore Roosevelt

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” -- Mark Twain

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” -- Henry Ford

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." -- Jim Rohn

Quotes-Aim High

“The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand.  They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.” - Ernest Newman, Writer
 
"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it. But that it is too low... and we reach it." - Michelangelo, 1475-1564 Italian Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet
 
"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." - Woodrow Wilson
 
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say:  Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.