Tag Archives: uplifting

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What If You Were Never Born?

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Do you ever feel like you aren’t making a difference? Maybe you think you’re replaceable and anyone could do what you do. Maybe you feel like a failure. We all feel like that from time to time. For some of us it gets so bad we wish we’d never been born.

When that happens, it’s time to George Bailey your life.

Remember George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life? He had so many things go wrong that he actually wished he’d never been born. God gave him that wish and he found out just how many lives he had touched and just how important he was. He stopped a pharmacist from giving a boy poison instead of medicine. He saved his brother’s life in childhood and his brother later saved a couple hundred men in WWII. He helped hundreds of people afford good homes. He and his wife created a beautiful family that wouldn’t have existed without him.

It was a wonderful life.

My preacher reminded me of that last Sunday. He was using the story to wonder how the world would be different if the church had never been created.

It got me to thinking, what would be different if I had never been born? What would be different if you hadn’t been? We can’t know for sure, but we do know some things. I know my two daughters, Faith and Summer would not exist. That’s enough reason for me to be born, right there. Of course, my wife could never have found as great a husband…ok, I better stop.

The world says everyone is replaceable. Wrong. You are not replaceable.

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But let’s go deeper. How many people would have lost a friend, coworker, mentor, brother, sister, mother, father, or child if we hadn’t been born? What would have happened to your friend you helped get a job or the elderly lady down the street whose lawn you mowed last week?

Spend just a little time thinking about this and you will begin to realize how many lives you have touched. Each life you’ve influenced created ripple effects that carry on across countless lives.

You do make a difference. We need you to keep making a difference

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As George Bailey’s angel, Clarence, put it, “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

Ask yourself, how many lives will you make an impact on today and for the rest of your life?

You know, it really is a wonderful life.

If this post resonated with you, Please subscribe to my blog and get my free eBook — 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose. You can also purchase my book, GO!

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Your Best Life

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Here’s your mission tonight, if you choose to accept it. Spend one half hour of your limited time on this big, blue marble hurtling through space writing down what your best life would look like. The questions below are to help guide you through this.

Done correctly, this is an extremely uplifting exercise. Just organizing and prioritizing your best life can increase your happiness, optimism, and belief that you can accomplish your goals.

I want my life to be so awesome that only Morgan Freeman could narrate it.

When you answer these questions, don’t edit yourself – or tell yourself “no” – or “you’re being unrealistic.” This is Fantasyland time. No limits. Reality will come later. We’re looking for your best life.

We want the answers to come from your gut. Write as quickly as you can the first answers that pop in your head. Listen to that quiet voice inside you. Let it get loud!

What would you do if it were impossible to fail?

What would your career be?

What would your marriage be like?

What would your income be?

How much free time would you have?

Where would you live?

How many people could you help?

What type of relationships would you have with your children?

What would your relationship be with God?

Where would you travel for vacations?

How many vacations would you take each year?

What would you have crossed off your bucket list?

How much would you give away to charity each year?

What would your spiritual life be like?

Where would you volunteer?

How much would you weigh?

What would your physical health be?

Would you play an instrument, speak a foreign language, or know how to dance?

What groups would you belong to?

These are just some questions to get you started. What questions do you need to ask yourself to get to your best life?

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Workin’ Hard or Hardly Workin’?

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We all work hard and it seems like there’s always more work to be done.

I’ve noticed something about myself and I’m wondering if it’s the same for you. When I plan out my day and stick to the plan I get a ton done.

When I just have an idea of what I’m going to do, I don’t get as much done. Yet, I still feel like I worked just as hard. How does that happen?

This morning I realized how it happens for me.

I work from home in the mornings and I had great plans on important things to do. Then I decided I needed to upload the video of my daughter’s recent musical performance. My phone didn’t sync with my Mac, so I had to download a program – 30 minutes gone.

Then I noticed a few hundred photos on my phone that were taking up space so I decided I needed to upload select photos from my phone to my Mac – another 20 minutes gone.

And so it went:

Check my email — four different accounts – 25 minutes

Send YouTube video I created to a contact (and watch some of my old ones) – 30 minutes

Check FB messages and notifications – 5 minutes

Renew my library books online – 5 minutes

I finally shook myself and realized that although I felt like I was working I had spent almost 2 hours doing absolutely nothing on my daily planner. Not good.

I hadn’t planned well, and I wasn’t even sticking to my not so great plan. It wasn’t that the things I was doing were bad, it’s just that they were taking me away from the more productive things I really wanted to get done.

Focus, Grasshopper, focus.

When I stick to my plan and work in hour blocks on my most important thing that aligns with my purpose, great things happen.

We can spend all day working on things that aren’t very important, or we can focus on the things that really matter. At the end of the day we’ll be tired either way.

The first way is an empty, dissatisfied, frustrated tired.

The second way is a job well done, life is good, earned relaxation now kind of tired. I love days like that.

Let’s GO!

If this post resonated with you, Please subscribe to my blog and get my free eBook — 5 Steps to Finding Your Passionate Purpose. You can also purchase my book, GO!

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Taking Time to Think is Not Being Lazy

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Being called lazy is one of the worst things you can call an American. We take great pride in being busy and working hard.

But, what if working really hard looks like you’re being lazy? Isn’t that what happens when you’re thinking? But isn’t that where we make the biggest advances in everything we do?

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

— Henry Ford

Henry Ford told his engineers that they should spend time everyday just thinking. He knew that was how they would come up with improvements for the factory line and new models of cars. Busy work wouldn’t do it.

Einstein published his five most famous papers while working as a junior patent clerk in a Swiss patent office. He said he had more time to think at that job, than he did once he became a science professor working at a University.

We need to schedule time to think. It is virtually impossible to be at your creative best in 5 to 10-minute increments. You can’t invent the next best thing when you let your email and text messages constantly interrupt your flow.

Thinking doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It means you’re doing some of the hardest and best work there is.

“Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”

― Lorraine Hansberry

Action steps: 1) Block out one or two hours to think. Don’t allow any interruptions. If you can’t do this everyday, pick two or three days a week to do it. Let others know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

2) Write down every thought that comes to you that could be useful.

3) Take your best ideas and think again about how to put them into practice.

Questions for comment: How do you find time to think? What benefits come from it?

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

—Albert Einstein