The Road to Lifestyle

We were greeted with "free ticket Sundays" when we walked into the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) this past weekend. My favorite part of strolling the museum and soaking in the artistic expressions is getting close enough to a piece to see the brush strokes, or lack thereof. The flow and energy, passion and commitment... the artist's voice is exposed on canvas for all to see. I remember being asked after painting a mural on the wall in my squadron at the United States Air Force Academy--a mural that depicted people and events at the Academy--where I was in the painting. I told the person, "I am everywhere." I was in every brushstroke of that painting... perhaps you did not see my exact likeness but I was there.

"But the good news is that courage is a habit. Like a muscle, the more you practice courage, the stronger you become. Eventually, you reach the point at which you are virtually unafraid. After that, your career takes off like a rocket." - Brian Tracy, The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible

"I discovered that one of life's greatest challenges, if not life's greatest challenge, was how to quit acting and start being." - Charlie "Tremendous" Jones "A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be." - Bruce Springsteen

There will be many times in your life that adversity stares you in the face, takes a step toward you, and pushes you to your knees. Will you let it keep you down? Will you suffer from the " quitter's disease" as Charlie "Tremendous" Jones calls it? Bill Hybels , in his book Who You Are When No One's Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise , encourages us to break through those quitting points by enlightening us to the fact that those quitting points are "made of tissue, not brick." Per Hybels , "Every time you break through a quitting point, you prove to yourself that quitting points are not as solid as some people think they are." Amelia Earhart put it yet another way. For her the quitting points, or the fears and difficulties of life that put our world at a standstill, are merely "paper tigers." According to Ms. Earhart: "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. Th...

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. - Adidas Ad, ESPN: The Magazine , 16 Feb 04

"Every decision you make--every decision--is not a decision about what to do. It's a decision about who you are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do." - Neale Donald Walsch

This made me laugh... a quote from Mark Twain: "I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened." The vast majority of the things we worry about never come to pass. According to a study by the University of Michigan (as related by John C. Maxwell in his article The 'Big 5' Challenges People Face , Success magazine September 2010 issue): 60% of our fears are totally unwarranted, meaning they never happen 20% of our fears are based in the past and out of our control 10% of our fears are so petty they can make no difference at all And of the remaining 10%, only 4 to 5% are "real and justifiable fears." Who determines the "real and justifiable" part, I wonder? Bottom line: "Fear is a poor chisel with which to carve out tomorrow." (From The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews)