No matter how misbehaved a child, the parents will accept.

War does not determine who is right, only who is remaining.

Happiness is a place between too little and too much.

From small beginnings could come great things.

Hope for miracles, but don’t rely on one happening.

God did not create hurry.

If a man knew where he would fall, he would spread straw there first.

The water is the same on both sides of the boat.

Even a small star shines in the darkness.

Love blinds your eyes, marriage opens them wide.

Closeness without conflict only exists in the cemetery.

An empty barn doesn’t need a roof.

Whether you’re running a neighborhood coffee shop or an online “store,” make it easy for your customers to grab a little something extra on the way out. Those little sales will add up to big numbers fast.

Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. This is especially true in the area of self-esteem and self-confidence. Everyone grows up with the need to be praised and recognized. No matter how successful or how elevated people become, they still need to have their self-images reinforced.

There is a line that says, “I like you because of the way I feel about myself when I am with you.” This line contains the key to human relations. The happiest men and women are those who make other people feel good about themselves when they are with them.

When you go through life raising the self-esteem of others, opportunities will open up. And people will help you in ways you cannot now imagine. So take every opportunity to say and do things that make other people feel more valuable. Each time you express a kindness toward another person, your own self-esteem improves. Your own personality becomes more positive and healthy.

The way to raise the self-esteem of others is simply to make them feel important. Everything you do or say that makes another person feel more important boosts his self-esteem at the same time.

if you want to impress someone, the direct way to do it is to point out your admirable qualities and accomplishments. But talking about yourself usually makes you feel a little foolish. (And sometimes embarrassed.)

If you want to get someone interested in you, the direct way is to tell him all about yourself. But the indirect way works better. Simply become interested in him. The more interested you become in him, the more interested he will become in you.

If you want to be happy, the direct way is to do things that will make you happy. However, the most enjoyable and lasting form of happiness comes from making someone else happy. It’s the Law of Indirect Effort at work again. When you do or say anything that makes someone else happy, you feel happy yourself. You boost your own spirits, your own self-esteem.

How do you get another person to respect you? The best way is to respect him. When you demonstrate respect or admiration for another person, he feels respect and admiration for you. Sociologists call this the Principle of Reciprocity. When you do something nice for someone else, that person will want to reciprocate by doing something nice for you. (Most romances and friendships are based on this principle.)

How do you get a person to believe in you? The answer is to believe in him. By showing that you have confidence in him, he will have confidence in you too.

You get what you give. What you send out, you get back.

Always set two deadlines for every project you agree to handle. One “official” deadline that you give to the outside world. Then another “real” deadline — maybe a week earlier — that you give to yourself and your team.

When the earlier deadline is met, resist the urge to deliver immediately. (The idea is to impress your boss by delivering only one or two days early. Don’t make him wonder if you are grossly under-challenged.)

Instead, “sleep on it” for a few days. This will give you time to fine-tune and tweak. Maybe even fix errors you missed on the first go-around

Valorie Burton

1. Learn when to be quiet.

2. Give yourself time to think. If you need more time to think about how to respond, simply say, “Let me give that some thought.”

3. Refuse to murmur and complain. We can always find something to complain about if we focus on the negative. Make a decision to appreciate the blessings in every situation and refuse to waste your words complaining and murmuring. Instead, ask, “What solution would help me eliminate the challenges I find myself complaining about?” Complaints drain your energy – and the energy of the people around you! Use your words to renew your energy, not deplete it.

4. Tell me something good! “What’s the best thing that’s happened to you lately?” Are you still asking yourself that question regularly? Stay in the habit of acknowledging the good things that are going on, so that you don’t find your conversation out of balance and focused solely on the negative realities you may face.

5. Speak your goals into existence.

Identify one way in which your words are hurting you more than helping you. Take a specific action to change that dynamic.

xperience deeper understanding of yourself and how you got to where you are now and what you really want.
Release anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, doubt, anxiety and depression
Feel more empowered, those little successes and good decisions start coming more often, before you know it success is building on success,your self-esteem will soar.
Take control of your life. Start to think and react consciously, make healthy self-nurturing choices.
Learn to love and accept yourself, you will find yourself attracting positive people into your life.



I NOW CHOOSE TO START THE PROCESS OF CHANGE
FOR THE LIFE I WANT

“Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.” - George Lucas

Because if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got!

When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Author Unknown

Henry Ford reportedly once complained that all he wanted from a worker was a pair of hands, but that he had to deal with the whole person instead. Each of us brings our whole self to work each day, regardless of whether we have a chance to express and actualize ourselves in our jobs.

May no gift be too small to give, nor too simple to receive, which is wrapped in thoughtfulness, and tied with love. -L. O. Baird

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there”- Will Rogers

“Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.” Anais Nin

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t. -Richard Bach

Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed. -Herodotus

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Robert Collier

“All we need to be responsible for is the present moment. Only the present is within our reach.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another. -Marquis de Condorcet

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. – Margaret Fuller

“Every thought of yours is a real thing – a force.” — Rhonda Byrne

Do something. If it doesn’t work, do something else. No idea is too crazy. -Jim Hightower

Take a chance All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. -Dale Carnegie

To die for an idea is to set a rather high price upon conjecture. -Anatole France

Forgiveness means letting go of the past. -Gerald Jampolsky

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotions.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

— Nathaniel Branden

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”

“A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.”

“In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn”

• First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• Third: The days are long, but the years are short. (click the link to see my one-minute movie)
• Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

Twelve Personal Commandments

• Be Gretchen.
• Let it go.
• Act the way I want to feel.
• Do it now.
• Be polite and be fair.
• Enjoy the process.
• Spend out.
• Identify the problem.
• Lighten up.
• Do what ought to be done.
• No calculation.
• There is only love.

What Started Me Thinking

• “Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.” Mark Twain.
• “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42
• “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
• “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
• “It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
• “A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
• “Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
• “Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

• Flaubert: “To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.”
• Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
• Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
• Sartre: “Hell is other people.”
• Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
• Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
• John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

1. Don’t believe a word you read. Test-drive the lessons learned.

2. Two basic realities exist: Our 1 percent World of Darkness and the 99 percent Realm of Light!

3. Everything that a human being truly desires from life is spiritual Light!

4. The purpose of life is spiritual transformation from a reactive being to a proactive being.

5. In the moment of our transformation, we make contact with the 99 percent realm.

6. Never – and that means never – lay blame on other people or external events.

7. Resisting our reactive impulses creates lasting light.

8. Reactive behavior creates intense sparks of Light, but eventually leaves Darkness in its wake.

9. Obstacles are our opportunity to connect to the Light.

10. The greater the obstacle, the greater the potential Light.

11. When challenges appear overwhelming, inject certainty. The Light is always there!

12. True internal change is created through the DNA power of the Hebrew letters.

13. All of the negative traits that you spot in others are merely a reflection of you own negative traits. Only by fixing yourself can you change others.

And finally, ULTIMATELY:

Love thy neighbor as thyself. All the rest is mere commentary.