Life Is a Rough Draft

"For if anyone thinks he is something [special] when in fact he is nothing [special except in his own eyes], he deceives himself. But each one must carefully scrutinize his own work [examining his actions, attitudes, and behavior], and then he can have the personal satisfaction and inner joy of doing something commendable without comparing himself to another. For every person will have to bear [with patience] his own burden [of faults and shortcomings for which he is responsible]." - Galatians 6:3-5 AMP 

"You don't have to be great to get started but you have to get started to be great." - Les Brown

PERFECT: 
MATURE (having a fully grown or developed body: grown to full size; having completed natural growth and development; having attained a final or desired state; of or relating to a condition of full development)

Diamonds start out as lumps of coal.  Oak trees begin as acorns.

Chinese bamboo trees are buried underground for up to five years before they reach for the sky.

With such examples in nature you think assume humans realize maturity is a process that takes time to produce results.  Not so. 

We think we have to be flawless, not a hair out of place (assuming you still have some, that is) from the very beginning. We believe we have to start with perfection and improve on it every single day. 

We have it backwards. Perfection does not begin with your first day on planet Earth, and you don't have to be perfect from the very start of your life to do anything significant with your life.  

Here's the truth: nobody begins life as a finished product. Not me, not you. NOBODY. Everybody starts life as a blank slate and works from there.

You may see someone who displays brilliance, artistry and skilled performance in their chosen field of endeavor. You say to yourself, They make it look so EASY...they are absolutely AWESOME!

And you'd be right. They are awesome. But you'd also be wrong, because you emphasized the wrong word in your appreciation of their gift, their talent.

You say the word, "easy," when you should be focused on the word "make."  Why do I say this? Because they didn't start out that way, that's why.

Mastering that gift, that talent, that unique ability is a lifelong process. It requires work.  Countless hours of work. Yes, I said it...WORK...   W-O-R-K.

The kind of work that demands rolling up your sleeves, investing blood, sweat, and tears to excel. The kind of effort that very few people want to engage in because it's "hard." 

Or maybe it's because most people are soft.  (just a thought)

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and it looks like work." - Thomas Edison

And by the way, work is just as much mental, emotional, and yes, even spiritual, as it is physical.  When you are doing something worthwhile you engage your entire being, not just your flesh and blood.  All your faculties are involved in the process. From the inside out, not the other way around.

Every day of your life is an opportunity to learn more, do more, to become more, to better yourself as you reach for higher standards of excellence. Not flawlessness...EXCELLENCE.

You do not have to be a finished product before achieving success. Everybody wants to be polished but nobody wants to go through the polishing. That takes time, and it's not comfortable. Growth and change can be tough but the struggle is worth the pain.

Perfection does not imply that you will be flawless, that you won't have spots, wrinkles, or blemishes. Perfection speaks instead of development, a process that removes spots, wrinkles, and blemishes over a period of time. It does not happen overnight.

This is why you shouldn't be so quick to put yourself down when you struggle the first few times you attempt something new. All is not lost. As a friend of mine told me some years ago, "Every master was once a disaster." I agree.

Each day is a new sheet of paper, a blank canvas. Even if your story didn't read very well yesterday you can use today to write a new chapter, or even correct the previous one.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off. Give life another try. Even if you stumble a bit don't worry, you can make corrections. After all, that's why they put erasers on pencils.

As long as you're still breathing you've got a chance to get your act together. Since life is a rough draft, the final chapter to your story hasn't been written yet, and there's still hope for a happy ending.

"They say To whom would He teach knowledge? And to whom would He explain the message? For He says, Precept upon Precept, Rule upon Rule, Here a little, there a little." - Isaiah 28: 9,10  AMP

"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you get it right." - Mr. Leroy Washington, mentor of Les Brown

That's all for now, gotta run.  Until next time, remember...

Keep it simple...  See ya!

Make Discouragement Your Nourishment

"Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his children...his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than all of his brothers; so they hated him and could not [find it within themselves to] speak to him on friendly terms. Now Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. Joseph's brothers were envious and jealous of him, but his father kept the words [of Joseph] in mind [wondering about their meaning]." - Genesis 37: 3-5, 11 AMP

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein

INSPIRATION: something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create; a force or influence that inspires someone; a person, place, experience, etc., that makes someone want to do or create something; a good idea; an inspiring agent or influence

Motivational speaker and businessman Les Brown speaks highly of his longtime mentor, high school teacher Mr. Leroy Washington, who often told him, "Make NO your vitamin," in order to achieve his dreams. He was told to use persistence to wear down people who assault you with NO until they surrender with YES.

That advice may seem counterproductive but as you give it some thought you will learn it's actually quite accurate.  How can this be? It's really very simple.  Let me explain.

Great victories in life require defying the odds. Success demands that you overcome opposition every step of the way. Bodybuilders know that muscle mass is built over a period of time through lifting weights that provide resistance. The more you lift, the stronger you become.


Your resistance in life is the doubters, critics, naysayers, second-guessers, a.k.a."haters," that you face on an everyday basis. No use in denying it, so you may as well acknowledge their existence. It is what it is. 

They try to talk you out of going after your goals, to quit on your dreams...just like they quit on theirs. Yes they do. But don't let it bother you. Success for you is possible anyway, no matter how much they say otherwise...here's why:

Their attempts to distract and discourage you are not guaranteed to work. No, they're not!

Just because they don't want to see you succeed doesn't mean you can't. You don't need their permission, or their approval. They just want you to believe you need it.  But that's a lie. 

The only power they have to stop you is the power you give them. Plain and simple.  But that's not all.

They hope to convince you that their approval is needed to move forward, that you can't do anything unless they say so. They also hope you believe they have the power to scare you into subjection with insults, threats, laughter, mocking, and ridicule. 

They think you'll stop in your tracks if you're too scared of shame, embarrassment, and humiliation to even try. 

But they're wrong. Dead wrong. Truth is...

They hope you don't discover that as you defy them, as you move forward in spite of threats, as you lift the weight they use to hold you down, they will lose their power to intimidate you. 

They won't grow strong as you grow weak; you will grow strong as they grow weak. They won't be able to control you, and you'll grow more powerful in endurance, in persistence, in determination and in confidence with each step forward...whether you stand or fall.

And don't let them fool you into thinking that as you'll be all alone as you step out, that there won't be anyone around to count on, that nobody else can help you but them.  That's not true, either.

Fact is, until you step out, you won't find out how many people are out there who truly can help you. The naysayers in your life try to talk you out of pursuing your vision of a better life simply because they cannot see it.  That's all.

Here's what else they don't realize:

1.  There are people out there who share your vision, who want to meet you where you are, and help you get where you want to go. They see value in your dreams, sometimes more than you do; that's why they want to help you.

2.  Every time your critics oppose you they are doing you a favor. The doubt and uncertainty they use against you is actually fuel for you. It can harden your heart and mind with steely determination. Its power can help you rise above barriers they create to hold you back. 

Don't lose sleep over people who oppose you, who put up barriers to block your progress. What they see as a dead end could really be a detour. Their attempt to make you stumble could be the rod and staff to guide your steps, to aid and comfort you, to keep you on the right path.

So take Les Brown's advice. Make NO your vitamin. Let naysayers become the fire that fuels your engine. Use their negativity to breathe new life into your vision so you can complete your mission.

Turn that stumbling block to a stepping stone, and then into a milestone, a place where you can mark the moment you achieved your great triumph.

Don't despair but be prepared. Be inspired. Be encouraged. You are criticized when you're on the right track. Keep going, stay focused ...and make this moment of conflict a monument to your success.

Make discouragement your nourishment so you can be unstoppable...

...and you'll be phenomenal.


That's all for now, gotta run.  Until next time, remember:

Keep it simple...  See ya!

What You're REALLY Afraid Of...And What You Can Do About It

"You don't have to be great to get started but you have to get started to be great." - Les Brown

I mentioned in Part I that people believe they are paralyzed by fear of failure. While this is true, the real issue goes much deeper. Fear of failure is just the tip of the iceberg. 

If fear of failure was the problem there are many things we never would have learned to do, much less tried. Think about it. We all struggled the first time we tried to walk and talk. But did we let that failure stop us from trying again? No, we didn't. We kept going until we learned how to do it. Setbacks didn't stop us.

I remember times in the backyard on Saturday mornings as a child, trying to hit Dad's pitching. He threw the ball, I swung. I missed. Over and over again. I failed but I wasn't discouraged; I didn't give up. I wanted to hit that ball.

So Dad kept pitching, and I kept missing until finally, I put the bat on the ball. And I hit it hard...into a neighbor's yard two houses away. My heart soared with the flight of that ball, and the thrill of success felt so good it erased every swing and miss that led up to it. The success was worth the struggle.

"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you get it right." - Mr. Leroy Washington, Les Brown's mentor

You can probably think of times in your life when something you failed at the first time (or many times) didn't stop you from going after what you wanted until you got it.  So what happened that got us paralyzed with fear, our hearts, and minds seized with alarm, at the possibility of falling short?  I believe it was this:

"Close friends and relatives, while not meaning to do so, often handicap one through 'opinions' and sometimes through ridicule, which is meant to be humorous. Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes all through life because some well-meaning but ignorant person destroyed their confidence through opinions and ridicule." - Napoleon Hill 

More than anything else, people are afraid of being judged and ridiculed in response to failure. And what makes it even worse is knowing who is responsible for doing so: the very people who gave them love and encouragement so early in life when they struggled and failed: family members and close friends.

They were hurt by insensitive remarks coming from people they loved, trusted, looked up to when they were vulnerable, dependent, sensitive so early in life. Many people withdraw because of this, keeping to themselves for fear of being hurt again. Then they are labeled as moody, antisocial when the truth is they just don't trust the people that hurt them anymore. And no amount of "I didn't mean it, I was just teasing, you just can't take a joke, don't be so sensitive," is going to change that.

We all hate to look bad, to feel ashamed or embarrassed. We hate to look stupid when things don't work out the way we planned. So we pull back from trying anything new. We've been brainwashed into thinking that success means never dealing with failure. We seek to avoid failure at any cost.

During such moments it may help to take advice from a favorite childhood author, Dr. Seuss, who reminds us to "remember a thing we forgot," a lesson from our youth that can serve us well today.  

Yes, it hurts to have people judge and ridicule you that once had your back. No, you don't have to make them stop laughing at you, but there are things you can do in response. Here's what I suggest: 

1. Recognize that ridicule from others is just an opinion, not a fact. Les Brown's mentor, Mr. Leroy Washington shared some wisdom that Les uses to this very day: "Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality." Just because others look down on you doesn't mean you have to do it, too. Love and validate yourself, no matter what others think about you.

2. Remember that failure is nothing more than feedback. That's all. A great lesson we learn from sports is that sometimes plays don't work the way we expected them to; they fail. When they do, we can make adjustments to get a better result the next time we try. Many winning teams, especially football, and basketball teams use the halftime break to adjust their strategy which can make the difference between victory and defeat at the end of the game. Life works the same way. You can make adjustments when things aren't working for you so you can make your life better.  And finally...

3. Remind yourself that every mistake you make provides a chance to grow, to get better, not worse. Take the advice of Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park. After thousands of failed attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb, he simply said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." He didn't let failure discourage him, but used every setback as a learning opportunity to help him find a way to make his invention work. As they say, the rest is history. You may not be inventing a product or service, but you may need to reinvent yourself in some way to achieve a unique success that makes you stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

Failure is not a dead end people, it's a detour. We discovered in our youth that failure is an opportunity that can help us to make needed changes if we take advantage of them. Despite what people may think, failure is part of the process that leads to success.  Embrace it.

Failure can teach us to grow stronger, to grow wiser, better than we would have become otherwise.  But this can only be possible if we view failure the right way...as a blessing rather than a curse.

So the next time someone mocks you for making a mistake, don't cringe, don't cower. Don't even get mad. Just smile and hold your head up, secure in the knowledge that each swing and miss gives you a chance to improve, to adjust, to sharpen your focus so you can get back on track.  If you can do that, before long you will be thankful for the opportunity to turn that setback into a comeback because you learned how to pick yourself up every time you fell down.

"You just can't beat the person who never gives up. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." - Babe Ruth

"Many of life's failures are people who didn't realize how close they were to success when they gave up.  Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas Edison

That's all for now, gotta run.  Until we meet again, remember:

Keep it simple...See ya!

Your Dream Is Your Baby...FEED IT..!!

In the 1996 film "My Fellow Americans," Jack Lemmon's character was often heard repeating to everyone that would listen (and some who wished they couldn't) that "...dreams are our children, they need love and encouragement to grow..."  As crazy as that may sound I believe he was onto something.

In the first part of this post I mentioned how I felt the first time I became a dad. I knew in my heart I would do anything possible to love, nurture, cherish and encourage my child to grow strong and healthy.

I also mentioned how upset you would be at the idea of someone sneaking into a hospital nursery to steal your newborn child, and you'd be right to feel that way.  That child is as much a part of you as your own name and you would fight to your last breath to keep anyone from taking him or her away from you.

(Picture a mama bear defending her cubs and I believe you'll get my meaning... 'nuf said)

I also hinted there is something that's just as much a part of you as your children, but sadly you don't acknowledge its value so you let people steal it away from you day by day because you don't think it matters very much...but I can assure you it truly does.

What is this special something that doesn't seem very special..?

Your DREAMS.  What..?  My dreams..???

Yes, your dreams.  Here's why...

According to Merriam Webster's dictionary (m-w.com), a dream is "something you very much wanted to do, be, or have for a very long time; a strongly desired goal or purpose.."  Your dream is part of your identity, it validates you as much as your DNA does. It is hard wired into your very being.

The sad part about dreams is that we don't give them much thought because we think they're foolish, silly fantasies not worth much at all.  We think they have no value.  Big mistake.

What we don't realize is that dreams are connected to our hearts like children are connected to our flesh and blood.  (If you are an adoptive parent then you know how love for a child can grow in your heart...dreams do the very same thing)

Losing a dream can be just as traumatic as losing a child.  This is why you see many people walking around with sad faces, broken hearts.  Some have even attempted suicide; they feel their life is no longer worth living for lack of a dream in their heart to pursue. They feel a loss of identity, a loss of purpose, and they lack a sense of fulfillment in their lives.

You may have heard this before and thought it made no sense, but it is still true: 

DON'T LET ANYBODY STEAL YOUR DREAM! 

Just like your child, your dream has great value.  Protect it. Nurture it. Cherish it.  Feed it.  Give it room to grow just as you would your beloved child.

Don't let anyone tell you that achieving your dream is impossible. Only those who quit on their dreams (or never bothered to pursue them at all) would dare try to talk you out of realizing your own.

Just like a child, as you give life to your dream and sustain it, your dream will give you life and sustain you in return.  When all is said and done, your dream can provide something that can sustain you and your descendants through many generations...

A legacy you can be proud to call your very own...and in the long run, such a result will always be worthy of pursuit.

Feed your dream...and live your dream...

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in uncommon hours." - Henry David Thoreau

That's all for now, gotta run.  Until we meet again, remember:

Keep it simple...  See ya!

Your Dream Is Your Baby

DREAM: something you have wanted very much to do, be, or have for a long time; a strongly desired goal or purpose

On November 16, 1997 at 3:20 p.m. I began a new chapter in life. I met my first child, a son. With his first breath I got a new identity... Dad.

About a minute later I was asked the question I wanted to hear all my life:   Do you want to hold him..?

I can't speak for any other first time father, but I couldn't wait to get my hands on him, to talk with him.  And when he was placed in my arms for the very first time I didn't want to let him go.

It wasn't love at first sight because I loved him before I ever saw him...and before he ever saw me.  As I spoke with him I didn't see anyone, didn't hear anyone, didn't notice or care that anyone else was there...except his mother, of course.

All that mattered to me was that I had a precious bundle in my arms and I wanted to do anything I could for him: feed him, nurture him, encourage him, help him grow strong, healthy, and wise.

Of course when you are blessed with your own little ones there is never a shortage of opinions from well wishers concerning what should be done to raise your kids the best way possible. Some advice is good, other advice, not so much....but at the end of the day it's your call, your decision. What you say and do with your child is what matters most.

Yes, there will be missteps, mistakes, and little messes along the way; we all know life isn't a bed of roses, a bowl of cherries, or 24-7 sunshine and rainbows. But you don't give up on your baby when raising him gets challenging from time to time. You roll with the punches and find a way to make things work for you and your child.  Why?

Because your child is part of you, part of your identity. Your little one is as connected to you as your own name.  As they grow they become nearer and dearer to your life than the first day you saw them.

You'd never consider letting someone just walk into your life and take your precious bundle of joy away from you. The very idea of a stranger walking into the hospital nursery to steal your newborn child would understandably send you flying into a fit of rage.

Yet there is something in your life that is just as important, just as precious, just as valuable to you as your own child, your flesh and blood, your bundle of joy...that you let people steal from under your very nose every single day.  

And you want to know the worst part? You hardly notice at all, much less care that anyone does it to you because you don't think it's all that important anyway.

I'll tell you what that something is next time, and why it matters, but I already gave you a clue before you started reading.  Here's another one for you to ponder as you wait for the conclusion:

That's all for now, gotta run.  Until we meet again, remember:

Keep it simple...  See ya!