“My life is my message.”
Mahatma Gandhi.
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Life leadership
Archived Posts from this Category
July 5, 2010
What is life?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Now, Procrastination, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Death, funeral, Life, Time |1 Comment
A good friend of mine wrote this little note after one of his good friends passed away;
What is life?
“Sometimes life goes by too fast for anyone to see what is really going on around them.Why do we always wait for someone we love to leave this world for everyone around them to realize how little time we have? We have to see the sadness in the people we love before asking ourselves the same question over and over. What else am I going to miss in life before I decide to slow down?”
Ritz Pesce
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Why, why, why???
July 5, 2010
Coco Chanel
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Life, Life leadership, Results, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Chanel, Coco Chanel, Life, love, Time, work |Leave a Comment
“There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.”
Coco Chanel
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After she lost the love of life ( Arthur “Boy” Capel), all was left to Coco Chanel was time for the other passion in her life; her work. This is where she put her time and look at the results that she produced. Concentrated efforts can sometimes give impressive results.
Many times when you like what you do for a living, work becomes play, and play becomes productive and both of them together can be very enjoyable.
What do you do to have fun at work and still be productive?
July 4, 2010
Stuck in the past? Worried about the future?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life leadership, Now, Procrastination, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time1 Comment
We can learn from past failures and mistakes, but we shouldn’t get stuck there. We can keep future goals in mind, but we shouldn’t get stuck there either. One of the best ways to improve our circumstances and our quality of life is to focus on what we must do right now, at this very moment.
Stephen Lafond
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July 3, 2010
Did Mark Twain inspire the author of Benjamin Button?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, WisdomLeave a Comment
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
Mark Twain
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July 2, 2010
Life is like a hot bath!
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life leadership, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: hot bath, hot tub, Life, stay, Time, wrinkles |Leave a Comment
“Life is like a hot bath. It feels good while you’re in it, but the longer you stay in, the more wrinkled you get.”
Robbert Oustin
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July 1, 2010
Do you sometimes feel under attack?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Procrastination, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, WisdomLeave a Comment
“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
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June 30, 2010
Is your life about to begin?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life leadership, Now, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, WisdomLeave a Comment
“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
Alfred D’Souza.
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June 29, 2010
The coin of your life
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: bank, bank account, coin, Life, minute, minutes, Time, today, withdrawal |Leave a Comment
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.”
Carl Sandburg
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Our time is like a bank account; every day we each have 1440 minutes that we can withdraw and we choose to invest as we want, the only difference with a financial bank account is that we cannot make a deposit, only withdrawals.
What will you do with your withdrawal today?
June 25, 2010
It’s Normal to Have Mood Swings!
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Now, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: boring, entertaining, joy, lazy, mood, news, project, Time |Leave a Comment
“Time cools; time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.”
Thomas Mann
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Good news, bad news, good mood, bad mood, joy, disappointments, new and exciting projects, boring routine, sunny day, rainy day, entertainment, lazy sunday afternoon…
This is what life is made of and each one of us must make the best of it.
One of the best lines I have ever read is from Anthony Di Mello who said: I AM NOT my depression.
He meant that we all have bad days but we can choose to watch our bad mood as a spectator would watch a movie, we don’t have to identify with it, we can simply become the observer of our mood.
Remember that it is not what happens to us but how we react to what happens to us that matters.
Do you spend too much time worrying about your mood swings?
Do you accept that you can have a bad day and just witness yourself having a bad day?
June 23, 2010
What Do We All Receive Equally Every Day?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Awareness, Complaining, Consequence, Control, Courage, Kvetching, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Now, Procrastination, Results, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Helen, Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Jefferson |[2] Comments
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.”
— Jackson Brown Jr., writer
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June 19, 2010
Equal opportunity employer
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Clarity, Consequence, Control, Important question, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Success, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: buy, employer, equal, fair, fairness, forgive, forgiveness, hour, hours, human, Life, minute, minutes, rich, scientist, Time, tomorrow, waste, wasting, wasting time |Leave a Comment
“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.”
Denis Waitley
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June 18, 2010
Making the most of the time we have.
Posted by stephenlafond under 1, 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Clarity, Decision, Illusion, Important question, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Now, Procrastination, Results, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: like, money, old, spare, Time |[3] Comments
“Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go.”
Josh Billings
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When I was 5 years old, I couldn’t care less about time.
When I was 15 years old, it seemed to me that everything was always taking too long to happen.
When I was 25 years old, it seemed like I was always so busy and running out of time.
When I was 35 years old, with a wife and children, a business to run, and bills to pay, I really had less and less time.
Now at almost 45 years old, I know that we never have enough time to do everything but we always have time to do the most important.
The more pressure we have with time, the more productive we seem to become.
Are you making the most of the time you have?
June 15, 2010
Instant or delayed gratification?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Choices, Illusion, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: gratification, Life, medical, moment, money, Olympic, present, sacrifice, Time |Leave a Comment
“There are very few men – and they are the exceptions – who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment”.
Carl Von Clausewitz 1780-1831
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One of the most difficult things to practice in our lives is to delay gratification and to take a long term perspective with our projects. Our consumer society doesn’t help us when it encourages us to BUY NOW and PAY LATER. Many times, we buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people who don’t care. We should always try to make the difference between an expense and an investment. We should try to avoid instant gratification. It’s a big challenge because it goes against every major trend in our society.
It applies to other areas in our lives as well;
The Olympic athlete has to make a lot of sacrifices to reach his/her goal. The medical student has to concentrate on his/her classes in order to get the diploma. The investor has to learn patience if he or she wants to earn dividends.
It is difficult because we should enjoy every day like if it is the last and at the same time invest our efforts and our resources for the future. The challenge for us is to find the balance between these two concepts.
Do you have the right balance between your daily activities and your long term projects?
June 14, 2010
Perseverance takes time.
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Choices, Consequence, Failure, Life leadership, Results, Success, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Life, patience, perseverance, save, Success, Time |Leave a Comment
“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.”
— Julie Andrews, actress
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Why do we give up on some of our projects? Because it’s too hard. It takes too much time. We don’t have the patience.
The irony is that when we keep persevering, we usually save time in the long run.
June 13, 2010
Sweat and Struggle
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Courage, Decision, Fear, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Success, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: challenge, Life, lottery, money, parent, parents, people, struggle, sweat, Time, witness, work |Leave a Comment
“Don’t feel entitled to anything you don’t sweat and struggle for”
Marian Wright Edelman (1939- )
American activist and founder of the Children’s Defence Fund
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Did you ever hear the saying “Easy come, easy go”? There seems to be an unwritten law in nature that takes away what we don’t deserve or what we didn’t work hard enough for. There is no way to prove it, but we can witness it over and over again in the form of people winning the lottery and spending everything very quickly, or children who inherit from rich parents without having to work for their money. Another variaton of this is when people have such an easy life that they are unable to cope when disaster strikes.
Do you often try to take some shortcut in order to get what you want?
June 9, 2010
The generosity of Mother Teresa
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: compliment, kind, Life, Time, worker |1 Comment
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
— Mother Teresa, charity worker
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When we give a sincere compliment, it costs us nothing, but it enriches the person who receives it. It usually doesn’t take much of our time, but it has a long lasting effect on the recipient.
Why don’t we take time to give more compliments?
May 22, 2010
Can’t sleep?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life leadership, Now, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time | Tags: bed, Fran Lebowitz, kid, Life, living, night, sleep, sleepless, Time |1 Comment
“Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep”
Fran Lebowitz ( 1950- )
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I still feel like a kid most of the time. I really don’t like going to sleep at night. I can’t wait to get up early in the morning.
By the time I’m ready to go to bed, I’m so exausted that I fall asleep right away. In between I try to live life to the fullest.
Do you have a hard time sleeping sometimes?
If you do, I reccommend that you do something very enjoyable until you’re so tired, that you will need to rest very quickly.
May 20, 2010
How to make your life easier?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life leadership, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time | Tags: 36525, 36525 days, Henry david Thoreau, important, invest, Life, simplicity, simplify, Thoreau, Time |1 Comment
Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify,simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
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How much time do you spend taking care of things that are not important?
How much time do you invest in things that are important?
Do you take time to get rid of what’s not essential?
May 19, 2010
Afraid of living fully?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Now, WisdomLeave a Comment
“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live”
Dorothy Thompson, journalist
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May 18, 2010
Thomas Jefferson and the Flow.
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Important question, Life leadership, Now, Serenity, Success, Time, Wisdom | Tags: flow, Life, Time, tranquility |1 Comment
“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness”
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson was describing the “Flow” before it was clearly defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.
Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.
(source: Wikipedia, english, May 18, 2010)
How often are you experiencing the Flow?
May 10, 2010
Day by day
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Serenity, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: apathy, frenzy, Life, pretense, Time |1 Comment
| “Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.” | |
| Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Roman emperor, philosopher |
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In other words, we should try to be fully aware of each moment, to do one thing at the time with people, to be active and productive and to simply be ourselves.
May 7, 2010
Forget the past !
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Life leadership, Serenity, Success, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Life, mistake, Now, past, Time |1 Comment
“Forget the past and live in the present hour”
Sarah Knowles Bolton
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There is not much you can do about your past. The only thing you can do is learn from it and try not to repeat the same mistakes.
But what if I cannot learn from my past mistakes? First, forgive yourself for not learning the lesson, then pay the price one more time until you sick of learning the same lesson over and over again.
Which lesson are you willing to learn over and over again?
May 5, 2010
Why not?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Important question, Life expectancy, Life leadership, Wisdom | Tags: 36525, 36525 days, benjamin, Benjamin Franklin, Death, dream, dreams, george bernard shaw, Life, Time, why, why not |[2] Comments
I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
George Bernard Shaw
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This is the reason why we talk about George Bernard Shaw; he dared to say WHY NOT?
How many times in our lives did we say WHY and the main reason was our concern for the opinion of others?
How many times we did not dare SAY THE THING or DO THE THING because of fear or timidity?
Benjamin Franklin used to say ; “Do something worth writing about or write something worth reading if you don’t want to be forgotten an hour after your death.”
Will you dare say WHY NOT ?
May 2, 2010
Change! Change! Change !
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Choices, Complaining, Consequence, Courage, Decision, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Time, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: attitude, change, complain |1 Comment
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
— Maya Angelou, poet
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Good luck with this one. Have a nice day.
May 1, 2010
Seneca & Benjamin Franklin
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Decision, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: Benjamin Franklin, Life, Time, waste, wasting time |1 Comment
“It is not that we have a short life to live but we waste a lot of it”
Seneca
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Sometimes we waste our time because we don’t have much control over what is happening to us. In this case, there’s not much we can do about it.
At other times we waste our time because we lack a definite purpose in our lives.
This we can do something about. We must take the time to ask ourselves the important questions, the ones that concern only us.
It may look like a waste of time at first, but in the long run, it will save us time.
Benjamin Franklin used to ask himself these important questions every night before he went to sleep.
What did I do wrong today?
What did I do right ?
What can I improve tomorrow?
Apparently, he did this for most of his life.
If you want to learn more about this, I recommend that you read his autobiography. It will make you realize that even if he had lived more than 250 years ago, he was facing similar challenges like the ones we have to deal with today.
Great weekend to all of you!
April 30, 2010
Is there a cure for birth and death?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Death, Here, Life, Life leadership, Procrastination | Tags: birth, Death, Life, Procrastination, Time |[2] Comments
There is no cure for birth and death , save to enjoy the interval.
George Santayana
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Did you ask to be born?
Will you ask to die?
I doubt it.
In between, we have to make the best of life with the talent we posess and the time that is given to us.
It is so simple. I wonder why some of us make it so complicated.
Do you know why?
Are you one of those who have a tendency to complicate things?
April 29, 2010
Under which influence are you living ?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Clarity, Decision, Here, Important question, Life, Life leadership, Results, Time, Time magagement, Wasting time, Wisdom | Tags: disillusion, influence, Life, Time |[2] Comments
Some of us live under the influence of alcohol.
The influence is good as long as we are under the influence. The next morning, the influence can be quite different.
Some of us live under the influence of shopping, and the influence is good until as we receive the credit card monthly statement…
Some of us live under the influence of gambling, and the influence is good until as we realize that the house always wins against most of us.
Some of us live under the influence of buying expensive toys to impress others who don’t care at all. This influence is gone when we realize that we become a slave of this habit.
Some of us are under the influence of a new religion, and the influence seems to disappear when that special God of ours doesn’t answer our requests.
Some of us indulge in sexual escapism, and the influence is gone when the temporary thrill is over.
Some of us will study philosophy and believe that they have found the Way, only to wake up later and realize that their particular philosophy can fail them.
Some of us will swear by the world of reason and science, only to discover the actual limitations of our understanding. At least at this point of our evolution.
Some of us will invest in the joy of parenthood only to realize later that our kids will be entitled to their own lives.
Some of us will want to earn a lot of money until they realize that money can’t buy love.
And while most of us live under one kind of influence or another, Time goes by.
Under what kind of influence are you living ?
Is this the kind of influence that you enjoy?
It’s up to you!
April 27, 2010
What Is Life?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Choices, Important question, Life leadership, Procrastination, Results, Success, Time, Time magagement, Wisdom | Tags: Life, selfish, selfishness, Time |[4] Comments
“Life is just one damned thing after another”
Frank Ward O’Malley (1875-1932)
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It’s true for most of us, at least until we choose to do OUR own damned thing.
I suppose that we feel like this when we lose the balance between how much time and effort we invest for others compared to the time we invest for ourselves.
When we spend a lot of time doing OUR own thing, others may think or say that we are selfish, however, when we invest a lot of time for others, ( I’m thinking of mothers with young children or when we are taking care of family member in need) it can lead us to becoming frustrated or irritable.
Our challenge is to find the right amount of time between what we do for ourselves and what we do for others.
Why is it so important to think of ourselves before we think of others?
The answer is; How can we give to others what we don’t have?
How can you give money if you don’t have enough for your own needs?
How can you give time when you don’t even have time for yourself?
How can you share your knowledge when you are ignorant?
It seems to me that the most generous people of today who are able to give back used to be the people who were thinking of themselves not long ago.
An example? Bill Gates with his philantropy and his Foundation. One of the richest man in the world is becoming one of the most generous in his lifetime.
Do you feel that you invest enough time for others?
Do you feel that you invest enough time for yourself?
Do you ever struggle with these questions?
April 22, 2010
Is there a life after death ?
Posted by stephenlafond under 36525 days, Aware, Awareness, Choices, Courage, Death, Life, Life leadership, Now, Procrastination, Time, Wasting time | Tags: afterlife, Death, Life, sense, Thoreau, Time |[5] Comments
The real question for me is : Is there a life BEFORE death ?
When they asked Henry David Thoreau his opinion on the afterlife, he answered to them: One Life at the time.
Sometimes , it seems to me that some of the people who worry the most about the afterlife are often the ones who don’t know what to do with this one.
Why should we worry about the unknown, why should we worry about something over which we seem to have very little control?
I hear many people talking about faith and yet, at the same time worrying constantly, how can they worry and have faith at the same time? Isn’t worrying the opposite of faith?
Do you spend too much of your time worrying about things over which you have no control?
Does this make any sense to you?
36525 days to live 