File:Paul cezanne 1861.jpg

 

Paul Cézanne]; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century’s new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne “is the father of us all” cannot be easily dismissed.

Cézanne’s work demonstrates a mastery of design, colour, tone, composition and draftsmanship. His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields, at once both a direct expression of the sensations of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature. The paintings convey Cézanne’s intense study of his subjects, a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity of human visual perception.

Source, Wikipedia, January 19, 2011

____________________________________________________________________________________________

He lived approximately 24 725 days…

Here are some of his creations. There are more to admire on Wikipedia.org

File:Paul Cézanne, Les joueurs de carte (1892-95).jpg

File:Cézanne, Paul - Still Life with a Curtain.jpg

Most of the happiness and success you enjoy in life will be determined by the quality of your relationship with yourself. 

However,  relationships with others do matter as well.

Building relationships takes time because it is all about the development of trust. 
 
“See first to understand, then to be understood.”

“Do your best to be there when they really need you.”

Concentrate on building a high level of trust. One decision at a time.

Protect your long term reputation.

Your quality of life will be enhanced by it.

Let time work to your advantage. Be patient.

Most of us probably overspend during the Holidays Season. Thanks to plastic money, we realize this at the end of the month when we receive our credit card statement.

So what do we do? We start paying the balance and we slow down with our spending habits for a couple of months. If possible, we try to increase our personal income. If not, we take more time and try to learn the lesson for next time.

This is quite easy to undertand when it comes to money. Not so easy to put in practice…

So like I said in the title: Don’t be afraid of your credit card statement!

Fear this instead… It is more dangerous in my opinion.

The way in which we manage our time is very similar to the way we manage our finances. And this is not good for many of us. Money slips through our fingers the way time flees from our lives. The difference, however, is that with time we can only make withdrawals, we cannot make deposits. Each one of us is given exactly 1440 minutes (24 hours) everyday.

At midnight tonight, these minutes are gone forever… and there is no way to create more minutes.

We can always make more money, we cannot make more time.

What will you do in 2011 to avoid wasting these precious minutes?

What will you do to protect your most valuable currency?

 

 

Fascination is one step above interest. You will learn more from being fascinated by life than you will from being frustrated by it.

In the last couple of years I have developped a childlike fascination with life and people.

I’m fascinated with so many things like foreign cultures, technological innovations, scientific discoveries, the vastness of the Universe, art and music styles, books, movies, and people from all walks of life.

What frustrates me every day? To know that I will not be able to see it all, to experience it all, to learn it all.

I guess this is why my biggest fascination for the last couple of years has been about the brevity of life and how limited our time is as humans. This is how I turned my frustration into fascination.

To make sure I keep myself fascinated, I keep a list of more than 140 goals and dreams to accomplish. These include books to read, cities to visit, new countries to discover, new skills to learn, old ones to re-learn, investments to make, new people to meet. I’m interested in so many different things that it would be too long to enumerate.

Today’s question for you is the following:

Most of the time, are you still fascinated or frustrated with life?

“Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift” 

Mary Manin Morrissey

____________________________________________________________________________________________

It seems to me that Natasha Richardson had almost everything going for herself. She seemed to be happily married to Northern Irish actor Liam Neeson. She had two sons. She came from a famous British family of actors and actresses. I assume that she was financially wealthy. She left this world unexpectedly at the age of 45 (16747 days).

On 16 March 2009,  Natasha Richardson sustained a head injury when she fell while taking a skiing lesson at the Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) from Montreal. The injury was followed by a lucid interval, when Richardson seemed to be fine and was able to talk and act normally. Paramedics and an ambulance which initially responded to the accident were told they were not needed and left. Refusing medical attention, she returned to her hotel room and about three hours later was taken to a local hospital in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts after complaining of a headache. She was transferred from there by ambulance to Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur, Montreal, in critical condition and was admitted about seven hours after the fall. The following day she was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, where she died on 18 March. An autopsy conducted by the New York City Medical Examiners Office on 19 March revealed the cause of death was an “epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head”, and her death was ruled an accident.

Source Wikipedia, January 14, 2011

____________________________________________________________________________________________

It reminds me of an incident that happened to me on October 1 st 2005. I was coaching at the hockey school. I wasn’t wearing my helmet that morning… I fell on the ice and hit my head really hard. My wife was sitting on the bench and heard the sound of my head hitting the ice. (do you remember how noisy it is at the arena?) I didn’t hear a thing but I sure felt it. I was completely dizzy. It took me a good 30 minutes to start feeling normal again. When I read Natasha’s story, it makes me realize that what happened to her could have happened to me.  I am so thankful that my life was spared that day.  

This is another reason why I try to live each day like it’s the last.

Does this make you realize how fragile your life really is?

If your answer is YES…

Start living now!

We can increase our efficiency and our effectiveness by becoming better and better at our key tasks. One of the most powerful of all time management techniques is for us to get better at the most important things we do. Our core competencies, our key skill areas, the places where we are absolutely excellent at what we do, are the key determinants of our productivity, our standard of living, and the level of achievement we reach in our field.

Think of all the great achievers for a moment. Albert Einstein apparently couldn’t remember his own phone number. Why ? because it wasn’t important to him. He said that he never bothered to remember things he could find in a reference book. He didn’t want to clutter his mind with non-essential information.

Now think of Céline Dion. Does she know how to cook? Yes, of course she knows how to cook. But cooking is not her greatest talent. Singing is HER GREATEST TALENT. So for the last 30 years, she invested most of her energy on her greatest talent.

Me? I run a small business, and if you ever managed a small business, you know that we always have limited resources compared to big corporations and the public sector. I used to try to do it all, try to know it all and not sleep at all. But not anymore. Why? Because it’s impossible. For the last 10 years or so, I have been working and using mostly my talents. What I don’t like or what I’m not good at, I try to find people who can perform these tasks better than I ever will. The book that really woke me up to this fact is this one;                                                                               

Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Build Your Strengths and the Strengths of Every Person in Your Organization

I recommend each one of you to read this book and fill up the online questionnaire to get to know your own strengths.

Thinking of yourself now: what is the single skill ( if you developed and focused on it completely) that would have the greatest positive impact on your life?  What is the one skill that determines the speed at which you complete your major tasks and achieve your goals?

Hints ? Usually it is something that you enjoy doing very much and it doesn’t feel to you like it’s a job

____________________________________________________________________________________________

What is the difference between efficient and effective?

Effective: How well YOU do it.
Efficient: Is the best way to do it.

File:Vilfredo Pareto.jpg

Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923), was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals’ choices. “His legacy as an economist was profound. Partly because of him, the field evolved from a branch of social philosophy as practiced by Adam Smith into a data intensive field of scientific research and mathematical equations. His books look more like modern economics than most other texts of that day: tables of statistics from across the world and ages, rows of integral signs and equations, intricate charts and graphs.” The pareto principle was named after him and built on observations of his such as that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule the law of the vital few) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Source; Wikipedia, January 10, 2011

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I discovered the pareto principle about 16 years ago when my company started a quality system initiative. Amazingly, this principle can be applied to many fields of endeavour and many different contexts. For example 80 % of the World wealth is controlled by 20 % of the people. If you start paying attention in your environment, you ‘ll discover many areas where the pareto principle works.

When it comes to time management, the worst use of your time is to do what need not be done at all. The Pareto principle says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items together.To be really productive, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life.

The value of anything in your order of priorities can be measured by evaluating the consequences of doing it or not doing it. Something that is important has significant consequences in your life.

You must ask yourself as often as possible, “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”  

Whatever it is, work on that. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks that can make the greatest difference in your life is the key quality that makes everything else possible for you.

Imagine that you are going to receive a  $ 25 000.00 bonus at the end of the month if you can work on your highest priority items every minute of the day.

How would that change your behavior?

What would you do differently?

In 1996, I  have read a book which had a profound influence on my  personal time management. The title of the book is “The 7 habits of highly effective people”.The reason why this book had a greater influence than other books is that I systematically put into practice its content. I used to work with  daily to-do lists and when my day was over, I was very frustrated that I did not accomplish what I wanted. So here is what I learned from this book.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

One of the great messages of the book is to plan every week in advance, preferably the Sunday before the workweek begins. Then, review your planning every day in advance, preferably the night before. When you make a list of everything you have to do the following day, your subconscious mind works on that list all night long. When you wake up in the morning, you will often have ideas and insights to help you accomplish the items on your list. 

Sometimes in our daily routine, things can get out of control and we end up not doing what we were supposed to do. This is why when we plan a week in advance, it gives us the opportunity to organize most of our tasks throughout the week. It gives us a better way to deal with the unexpected situations.

Another key message is to separate the urgent from the important. In the process of managing your time, you must separate the urgent tasks from the important ones. Urgent tasks are determined by external pressures and requirements. You must do them immediately. Once you took care of the urgent tasks, it gives you the freedom of mind to give your full attention to the important ones.

If you feel frustrated at the end of your days with the impression that you never have enough time to do all you want, I recommend that you try this very simple technique of planning a week in advance.

One more thing, leave some free time in your agenda to have time to deal with the unexpected situations. There will be some.

It’s not too late for new year’s resolutions!

But…

Some people don’t like new year’s resolutions because they don’t think it works for them.

It’s not a reason to neglect taking a close and honest look at your life.

Socrates said many years ago “A life unexamined is not worth living”  

 

 

Well, why is it that so many people don’t take the time to quiet their minds and take a look at their lives?

Why don’t they  ask themselves some important questions like;

Who am I? 

What do I want to do with my life? 

What are my natural talents or skills?       

What makes me happy or unhappy?         

What am I afraid of and why?    

Why do I think I’m too old or too young?                 

Who do I like to spend time with?              

What can I do to improve my circumstances? 

Do I have a tendency to blame others for my own failures or limitations?

You don’t have to call it a new year’s resolution. But you can still make some changes or improvements.

The real question is:  What will I do in 2011 to make a difference in my life?

 

____________________________________________________________________________________

In 2011, if you really want to achieve most of your goals and become what you are capable of becoming, you have to get your time under control. A sense of control over your time should reduce your stress level and increase your overall well-being.

One of the first things you must do is to clarify your priorities. It is impossible to do it all. I know because I tried and I failed miserably. In the past, I planned to accomplish too many goals and objectives at the same time only to become frustrated.

Recently, I focus on 3 or 4 important goals only, and I do everything I can to follow through.

To choose or not to choose!  This is today’s question.

Will you be a victim of the over-abundance of possibilities or will you choose to focus on what is most important for YOU?

Do you have the ability to set clear goals for yourself ?

Have you develop the ability to get yourself organized and work on your most critical tasks, every minute of every day?

Do you have a way or a system to measure it?

Your choices and decisions have combined to create your entire life to this moment. To change or improve your life in any way, you have to make new choices and new decisions that are more in alignment with who you really are and what you really want. 

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what you want?

Have you CHOSEN what you really care about?

Have you written it down?

Do you review it DAILY?

Begin with a list. These lists drive my wife crazy…because she knows that I will stop at nothing to get them done.

The fact is that we can’t manage time; we can only manage ourselves. That is why time management requires self-discipline and self-control. Time management requires that you make the best choices and decisions necessary to enhance the quality of your life and work. Then you follow through with your decisions. 

Make a list of everything you would like to be, do, or have in the months and years ahead. Analyze your list and select those items that can have the greatest possible consequences in your life.

Oh before I forget… REVIEW YOUR LIST OF GOALS AND OBJECTIVES DAILY.

Hey I know it’s not very sexy, but guess what, IT WORKS !!!

Here are the lyrics of a song from Bon Jovi.

 

What Do You Got?

Everybody wants something, just a little more 
We’re making a living, and what we’re livin for 
A rich man or a poor man, a pawn or a king 
You can live on the street, you can rule the whole world 
But you don’t mean one damn thing

Chorus: 
What do you got, if you ain’t got love 
Whatever you got, it just ain’t enough 
You’re walkin’ the road, but you’re goin’ nowhere 
You’re tryin’ to find your way home, but there’s no one there 
Who do you hold, in the dark of night 
You wanna give up, but it’s worth the fight 
You have all the things, that you’ve been dreamin’ of

If you ain’t got someone, you’re afraid to lose 
Everybody needs just one, someone… to tell them the truth 
Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I still believe 
I believe in hope, I believe the change can get us off our knees

Have A Nice Day!

 

 

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”
 

Oscar Wilde

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Oscar Wilde was a writer, playwright, humorist, satirist, and astute observer of the human condition. What does he mean by, “Life is too important to be taken seriously?” Is it just a simple joke?

Many times, we have a tendency to make a big deal out of small things.

Today, try to ask yourself this simple question; what will this mean for me 1 year or 5 years from now?

If the answer is “not much”. Why worry today?

Life is too short not to be joyful and celebrate each day.

I will post something every single day in 2011!

Good luck… to me.

_________________________________________________________________________________

These are the statistics that I received from WordPress.com on december 31, 2010.

My year 2010 in blogging. 

Happy New Year from WordPress.com! To kick off the year, we’d like to share with you data on how your blog has been doing. Here’s a high level summary of your overall blog health:

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

In 2010, you wrote 288 new posts, not bad for the first year! You uploaded 18 pictures, taking up a total of 8mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

Your busiest day of the year was April 20th with 78 views. The most popular post that day was The fear of death.

 

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

Gandhi

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

Every time I read this quote, I become energized and very enthusiastic.

Happy new year to all of you!

The first rule of doing work that matters

Go to work on a regular basis.

Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard.   (SO TRUE)

When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out–this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break.

Zig (ZIGLAR) taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain is quickly trained to use that escape hatch again and again.

Isaac Asimov wrote and published 400 (!) books using this technique.

The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed neverending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekends. It cuts both ways.)

In short: show up.

“The fault is NOT in the stars, but in ourselves.”

Shakespeare

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

How many times do we blame others for what happens or what doesn’t happen to us?

When we point our finger at someone, did you ever notice that at least three of them are coming back towards us?

Confucius used to say; “Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean”

When you complain about something, 80% of people don’t care about your complaining and some of the last 20% are happy about your misery. Why? Because the first 80% are too preoccupied with their own lives. The remaining 20% are simply envious of you and that makes them secretly happy when something bad happens to you.

What was the question again? Oh yes, Who’s fault is it? Sorry folks, but it’s almost always your fault.

And what if it wasn’t ? Well, it’s your responsibility.

“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness”

Thomas Jefferson

___________________________________________________________________

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?

“It is not that we have a short life to live but we waste a lot of it”

Seneca

_________________________________________________________________________

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 lived more than 250 years ago, he was facing similar challenges like the ones we have to deal with today.

Product Details

It seems to me that we are stubborn students of life.

Life seems to tell us; here is a situation you need to face for your own developpement, and yet, most of the time, we will try to avoid the lesson. Why? Because it’s too damned hard! The curious thing about this is: the lesson we try to avoid seems to come back to us in many unexpected ways. Somehow, we can’t escape it. We have to meet the challenge.

An example?

I know some people (actually quite a lot of them) who move from relationship to relationship only to discover after a while the same problems they were experiencing in the previous relationship. It seems to me that what they are trying to avoid comes back to them in another form and with a new label.

Personally, I start too many new projects and I don’t finish all of them. I know it, I’m aware of this but somehow, it doesn’t seem  to change. I have to admit I can’t do  it alone. When I face this kind of situation, I try to find a coach, a mentor or a personal trainer to make sure I am accountable to someone.

When we focus on the moment and accept to face what we have to, it can be difficult, but it is one of the best ways to grow, to outgrow the challenge.

What does this post have to do with time?

If we do what WE MUST do when WE HAVE TO do it, the day will come when we will do what WE WANT to do WHEN WE WANT TO do it.

The sooner we understand this concept and we put it in practice, the more time we will save to do other activities that we really enjoy.

Will you try it?

“What a wonderful life I had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner”

Colette

_________________________________________________________________


Life is not always easy! Sometimes, life throws a curve at us and we have a hard time dealing with it.

This is why it’s important to remember our blessings, especially when things don’t go our way. Because, most of the time, even when things are not as good as we’d like, there is still a lot going well. It’s important to take the time to be thankful EVERYDAY for the good things in our lives.

In 1985, I had a car accident and I was immobilized without being able to walk for about 6 weeks, then after I had to go to physiotherapy for a couple of months. That was the bad side of the accident. The good side of it is that for the first time in  my young life, I took the time to read good books and spent time all alone away from the distractions of the world.Time to ponder upon what I was going to do with my life.

This was the beginning of a process of introspection that lead me to question constantly what I was going to do at almost every moment of my life. As Socrates once said, “A life not examined is not worth living”,  from now on, I would question myself and question others continuously. I would start to doubt common beliefs and confront them. it was not because everyone said something that it was necessarily true.

As we question ourselves and others, it is tempting to become sarcastic, but this is when it’s important to take a long-term perspective and realize that something bad in the short term might turn out to be a good thing in the long run. Many curses are opportunities in disguise. It’s up to us to learn how to recognize them.

Everyday we must look at the good things in our lives even when everything seems to be hopeless.

Everyday we must count our blessings and try to minimize our sorrows.

This is one of the ways to appreciate how wonderful life really is.

Will you count your blessings today?

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 statement…

Some of us live under the influence of gambling, and the influence is good until as we realize that the house wins most of the time.

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 in 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 influence are you living ?

Is this the kind of influence that you enjoy?

It’s up to you!

 I think it is good to be “Voracious”.

“Voracious” means to be very greedy or eager in some desire or pursuit.

The intensity of your desire will determine how long it takes for you to reach your goal. When it comes to reading, writing, respecting some deadlines, exercising, traveling, learning new skills, and meeting new and different people, I consider myself to be extremely “Voracious”.

What is good about being “Voracious” it that it saves a lot of time.When we enjoy doing an activity, it takes a lot less energy. That is why it is so important to invest more time on our natural strengths. On the other hand, we can delegate or eliminate what we don’t like to do.

This is the way to keep our level of voraciousness extremely high.

Do you consider yourself “Voracious” ?

Look at what Leonardo da Vinci has accomplished in only 24 488 days. It fascinates me how someone like him could  have accomplished so much in so little time and with much less resources and knowledge available to us nowadays. There were no computers, no Google, no Wikipedia, and yet take a look at the description of who he was and the scope of his realizations;

 

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and “his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote”. Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time. Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious paintings of all time, respectively, their fame approached only by Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam. Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on everything from the euro to text books to t-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Source, Wikipedia, December 4, 2010.

 

“Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect”

Leonardo da Vinci, artist

_____________________________________________________________________

Are you active enough to keep your mind intellectually stimulated?

 

I was walking on the 103rd floor of the tallest building in the United States

and suddenly, I chickened out…

File:Sears Tower ss.jpg

In October 2009, I visited the Willis Tower ( formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago. When I reached the top floor, I noticed some glass balconies that were suspended outside the building. The all-glass boxes allow visitors to look through the floor to the street 1,353 feet below. The boxes, which can bear five  tons of weight, extend approximately four feet over Wacker Drive from the 103rd floor.

It is a very interesting experience to look down at the cars when we feel like we’re walking on thin air.

As I entered one of the balconies, I walked right in it and I wasn’t able to stay in the box more than 30 seconds. Beside me, there was a child of 3 years playing in the box without a worry in the world. The boy played in the box for at least a good 10-15 minutes.

I suddenly realized how fearful I had become as an adult compared to this little child. I knew the boxes were very solid, but I didn’t trust it enough to stay longer than 30 seconds. 30 very long seconds.

Was it the structure of the box or myself I didn’t trust?

I was humbled by the innocence and the complete trust of a child.

How many times in your life do you avoid doing something because you don’t trust yourself? 

Because you’re afraid…

or you don’t finish what you start…because… because… because.

Do one thing EVERYDAY that scares you!!!!!!

 

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

Tallulah Bankhead

_______________________________________________________

 

It’s good to make mistakes!!!

Repeat after me,

It’s good to make mistakes!!!

Forget about what others will say.

You will experience failure many times in your life. Not all the time, but you will. If you don’t fail enough, it’s probably because you don’t try new things very often.

We can do this with our dreams; wish them away, let them slip away because we are afraid to fail, afraid to get started or because we are waiting for the right moment. The right moment? Most of the time, is an excuse or at best, an illusion.

I make so many mistakes all the time. Am I a slow learner? It’s possible, however, it’s the only way to improve anything. Every time I take a chance to make a mistake, I also get a chance to do something right.

An exemple?  The top scorer in the NHL will miss his shots more often than he will score a goal, but we don’t remember when he misses, we add up the goals.

We will always miss 100 % of the shots we don’t take.

Some of you may argue that we should learn from what we are doing good, and I agree. We should always repeat our good experiences to the extent that we benefit from them.

However, we should not let ourselves be paralyzed with inaction because of the fear of making mistakes. The young baby who is learning to walk will fall. The one who is learning to swim or to dance will not be very elegant at first. The failing is part of the learning process.

Will you risk making a mistake today?   At least one…

“I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at the time.”

Charles Schulz, Peanuts, cartoon

____________________________________________________

A while ago, a lady went to a restaurant in downtown Montreal to celebrate her birthday with her husband , as they entered the restaurant, apparently they asked the hostess for a seat near the window to get access to a better view…

This is an excerpt of the Montreal Gazette July 17, 2009

“MONTREAL – One minute Thursday night, a couple was quietly celebrating a birthday inside the Mikasa Sushi Bar on Peel St.; the next minute, a concrete slab crashed through the glass skylight above them, killing the 33-year-old woman instantly.

Her husband of two years, also 33, lay next to her lifeless body screaming, “Ma femme! Ma femme! Stay with me!”

He pleaded for help, but other diners and staff were paralyzed with shock. Minutes later, sobbing and screaming, the man was loaded into an ambulance, his right hand wrapped in a blood-soaked napkin, two single tracks of blood running down his cheek.

“Her birthday was Monday, that’s what they were celebrating,” said the nurse, who spoke on condition that her name not be published. The concrete panel from the 18th floor of the Marriott Residence Inn crashed through the sloping glass ceiling of the restaurant, which lies directly below at street level, and hit the woman “directly” – while she was seated at her table, said Montreal police Constable Olivier Lapointe.”

The last thing this couple was expecting on that evening was a piece of concrete to fall on the woman’s head…  33 years old.   (12 045 days)

The reason why I bring up this story today is to show that when we have regrets about the past or worries about the future, we waste precious time and energy. We must focus on the present.

This is where our attention should be because this is where we have a little more control over what happens to us. This lady didn’t have much control over what happened to her that night.

Today, try to focus your attention on what you can influence and the rest will take care of itself.

I agree with the creator of Peanuts; we should only “dread one day at a time”

How many days to you “dread” in advance?

Reasons to work

  1. For the money
  2. To be challenged
  3. For the pleasure/calling of doing the work
  4. For the impact it makes on the world
  5. For the reputation you build in the community
  6. To solve interesting problems
  7. To be part of a group and to experience the mission
  8. To be appreciated

Why do we always focus on the first? Why do we advertise jobs or promotions as being generic on items 2 through 8 and differentiated only by #1?

In fact, unless you’re a drug kingpin or a Wall Street trader, my guess is that the other factors are at work every time you think about your work.

“Instead of concerning ourselves with what will come tomorrow, we should be thankful for what we have today, which is good health for most of us, a roof over our heads, food to fill our stomachs and free time to enjoy with our family and friends. This does not mean that we should not plan for tomorrow. It just means that we should not let it control us to the point where it takes us away from what we are able to do today.”

Stephen Lafond

_____________________________________________________________________

C’est le titre de bien des journaux et de nombreux sites internet: Pat Burns a perdu son combat contre le cancer.

Et ça m’agace.

Pat Burns n’a pas perdu. Il est allé au bout de sa vie. Comme nous irons tous. Vrai, il a du se battre pour vivre au cours des dernières années, mais sa mort n’est pas une défaite. C’est juste que la cloche a sonné. Comme elle sonnera pour nous tous. Et si l’arbitre en haut a un bras à lever, ce sera sûrement celui de Pat Burns. C’est lui, le champion. Pas le cancer.

Et c’est ainsi pour Pat, comme pour tous les autres affligés par le crabe maudit. Ils ne perdent pas leur dernier combat. Le combat se termine. Point.

Non, la mort n’est pas une défaite. La mort est un fil d’arrivée.

Pat est arrivé. Et il peut être fier du chemin parcouru.

Savoure ta plus belle victoire, Pat: l’amour que tu as transmis à ceux qui te pleurent aujourd’hui.

Source, LaPresse, Stéphane Laporte. 20 novembre 2010

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) French composer

________________________________________________________________________________

Time is a great teacher when we dare to make mistakes.

Time is a greater and more effective teacher when we accept to learn from our mistakes.

Time is the greatest and wisest teacher when we learn from the mistakes of others and avoid to make them ourselves.

Time will eventually kill all of us, and since we don’t know when, one of the most important lessons Time can teach us is:  To live each day to the fullest..

What did Time teach you recently?

What would you do differently if you learned that you had 3 months left to live?

Oh really!    

Why wait?