Brian Tracy - Organizing your time

Something a laptop cannot achieve

You will love this. It is something that a laptop cannot achieve!

Chistianity & Islam Medley

Beautiful Islamic and Christianity

duet at a concert in Lebanon -

if only everyone could see its possible for religions to bring peace, rather than violence and hatred..

Women with a mission

Mary Kay Ash banged her head on the corporate glass ceiling one too many times. Working for several direct sales companies from the 1930s until the early 1960s, she achieved considerable success. She climbed the corporate ladder to become the sole woman on the board of directors of the World Gift Company—quite an accomplishment for a woman in the 1950s.

But life wasn’t rosy at the top. Even though Mary Kay had the title and the track record, she was not taken seriously by her male peers. In board meetings, her opinions and suggestions were ignored, dismissed, or even ridiculed. Male board members minced no words in their judgment, pronouncing her guilty of “thinking like a woman.”

Since the sales force was almost entirely female, Mary Kay thought that thinking like a woman was an asset. But her fellow board members disagreed. Finally, in frustration, she retired in 1963, intending to write a book to assist women in the male-dominated business.

Sitting at her kitchen table, she made two lists: one list was all the good things she had seen in the companies where she’d worked, and the other list was all the things she thought could be improved. As she re-read her lists, she realized that what she had in front of her was a marketing plan for her ideal company. In just four weeks, her “book” had become a business plan, and her retirement was over.

Both her accountant and her attorney did their best to discourage her, warning that she would be throwing her money away on this venture. But Mary Kay had heard enough male nay-saying in her corporate years—she ignored her advisors.

Her husband, unlike her accountant and attorney, was very supportive. With his help, Mary Kay developed cosmetic products, designed packaging, wrote promotional materials and recruited and trained her female sales force.

Then the unthinkable happened; her husband of twenty-one years died of a heart attack. Another woman might have dropped her plans, or at least delayed them, but Mary Kay was a strong Texas woman. She stayed on track with the help of her twenty-year-old son, Richard Rogers, and rolled out her new business in September of 1963.

Beginning with a storefront in Dallas and an investment of $5,000, Mary Kay Cosmetics earned close to $200,000 in its first year—quadrupling that amount in its second year. When Mary Kay took her company public in 1968, sales had climbed to more than $10 million.

Mary Kay’s unusual corporate motto, “God first, family second, career third,” was unconventional, to say the least. But she understood the need for women to have balance in their lives, and she was committed to providing unlimited opportunity for women’s financial AND personal success.

Mary Kay authored three books, all of which became best-sellers. Her business model is taught at the Harvard Business School. She received many honors, including the Horatio Alger Award. Fortune magazine has named Mary Kay Cosmetics as one of the Ten Best Companies for Women, as well as one of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.

At the time of her death in 2001, Mary Kay Cosmetics had 800,000 independent beauty consultants in 37 countries, with total annual sales of over two billion dollars. Never underestimate the power of a woman with a mission!

Pay it forward

Have you ever been in line to get coffee and the person in front of you pays for your order? It makes you feel pretty great. And it makes you want to pass that feeling on to someone else. The ripple effect of just one small act of kindness can make a positive difference in so many people’s lives!

In honor of small acts of kindness, we’re celebrating Pay It Forward Day! Today, people all over the world will take the time to do something nice for someone else, and the happiness will continue to spread. Join us by doing something small just to make someone’s day.

When you think about a random act of kindness you can do today, remember these 3 things:

1.

Anyone can make a difference. When 8-year-old Katelyn Indelicato heard about a local man who was shot and paralyzed as an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting, she wanted to help him any way she could. She emptied her own piggy bank and raised money to pay for a physical therapy session for a complete stranger who was going through a tough time. “Anyone can make a difference,” Katelyn said. “You can be more than what you are right now. You can do more than what you’ve already done.” If a 3rd grader can make a difference, you can too.

2.

A single small act of goodwill has the potential to make a huge difference. In 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science: A butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air—eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet. He was laughed out of the conference, his hypothesis preposterous. More than thirty years later, the butterfly effect was found to be authentic, accurate, and viable. Just like the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a hurricane, an act of kindness by one person can make the world a more positive place.

The secret to living is giving

There are certain stories that just get stuck in your head…changing the way you look at life. In the next three minutes, you’re about to experience one of those stories.

It’ll illustrate, more than words can say, the #1 thing you can do to transform your entire life…and the lives of those around you.

God Whispers

Leaning on the Everlasting arms

"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" like you've never heard it before!

This man is so good - listen to his voice & how it changes to

sound like the original singers in each decade.

Sound ON!

Baptist Church Meeting

You'll enjoy this - A Must See!!

THIS IS HILARIOUS BE SURE TO WATCH IT.

This Baptist Minister of Music Is A

"REAL ENTERTAINER"

Enjoy! 

Happy Easter - Jesus is Risen!

The Greatest News that shatters all logic

"JESUS IS RISEN from the DEAD,"
  reverberates through the world.

Receive His blessings!

Happy Easter!

Garden of Gethsemane

Garden of Gethsemane

by Ronald Rolheiser

Several years ago, Mel Gibson produced and directed a movie which enjoyed a spectacular popularity. Entitled, The Passion of the Christ, the movie depicts Jesus' paschal journey from the Garden of Gethsemane to his death on Golgotha, but with a very heavy emphasis on his physical suffering.  The movie shows in graphic detail what someone who was being crucified might have had to endure in terms of being physically beaten, tortured, and humiliated.

While most church groups applauded the film and suggested that, finally, someone made a movie the truly depicted Jesus' suffering, many scripture scholars and spiritual writers were critical of the movie. Why? What's wrong with showing, at length and in graphic detail, the blood and gore of the crucifixion - which, indeed, must have been pretty horrific?

What's wrong (or better, perhaps, amiss) is that this is precisely what the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death don't do. All four Gospels take pains to not focus on the physical sufferings of Jesus. Their descriptions of his physical sufferings are stunningly brief: "They crucified him with the two criminals." "Pilate had Jesus scourged and handed him over to be crucified."  Why the brevity here? Why no detailed description?

The reason that the Evangelists don't focus us on what Jesus was enduring physically is that they want us to focus something else, namely, on what Jesus was enduring emotionally and morally. The passion of Jesus is, in its real depth, a moral drama, not a physical one, the suffering of a lover, not that of an athlete.

Thus we see that, when Jesus is anticipating his passion, the anxiety he expresses is not about the whips that will beat him or the nails that will pierce his hands. He is pained and anxious rather about the aloneness he is facing, how he will be betrayed and abandoned by those who profess to love him, and how he will, in the wonderful phraseology of Gil Bailie, be "unanimity-minus-one".

That the passion of Jesus is a love-drama is also evident in its setting. It begins with him sweating blood in a garden - and ends with him being buried in a garden. Jesus is sweating blood in a garden, not in an arena. What's significant about a garden?

In archetypal symbolism, gardens are not for growing vegetables or even for growing flowers. Gardens are for lovers, the place to experience delight, the place to drink wine, the place where Adam and Eve were naked and didn't know it, the place where one makes love.

And so the Evangelists place the beginning and the end of Jesus' passion in a garden to emphasize that it is Jesus, as lover (not Jesus as King, or Magus, or Prophet) who is undergoing this drama. And what precisely was the drama?  When Jesus is sweating blood in the Garden and begging his Father to spare him having to "drink the cup", the real choice he is facing is not: Will I let myself die or will I invoke divine power and save my life? Rather the choice was: "How will die? Will I die angry, bitter, and unforgiving, or will I die with a warm, forgiving heart?"

Of course, we know how Jesus resolved this drama, how he chose forgiveness and died forgiving his executioners, and how, inside all that darkness, he remained solidly inside the message that he had preached his whole ministry, namely, that ultimately love, community, and forgiveness triumph.

Moreover, what Jesus did in that great moral drama is something we're supposed to imitate rather than simply admire because that drama is also ultimately the drama of love within our own lives, presenting itself to us in countless ways. Namely:

At the end of our lives, how will we die? Will our hearts be angry, clinging, unforgiving, and bitter at the unfairness of life? Or, will our hearts be forgiving, grateful, empathic, warm, as was the heart of Jesus when he said to his Father not my will but yours be done?

Moreover this is not just one, major choice we face at the hour of death; it is also a choice we face daily, many times daily. Countless times in our daily interactions with others, our families, our colleagues, our friends, and with society at large, we suffer moments of coldness, misunderstanding, unfairness, and positive violation. From the indifference of a family member to our enthusiasm, to a sarcastic comment that is intended to hurt us, to a gross unfairness in our workplace, to being the victim of a prejudice or abuse; our kitchen tables, our workplaces, our meeting rooms, and the streets we share with others, are all places where we daily experience, in small and big ways, what Jesus felt in the garden of Gethsemane, unanimity-minus-one. In that darkness will we let go of our light? In the face of hatred will we let go of love?

That's the real drama of the Passion of the Christ - and the ropes, whips, and nails are not the central drama.

You become what you think

Some of the most successful people will tell you that their achievement was fast tracked by learning from someone who had already achieved success in what they wanted to do. It is also true that you become your environment, if you surround with people with low aspirations… who moan and complain all the time, then that is what you will become. People like that are toxic to your own happiness and success.

Many successful people will tell you that they found the most benefit by being in a mastermind group of like-minded people they could bounce ideas off and feel inspired by!

The future

What will you do with your future? This might make a difference in your day . . . and maybe . . . just maybe . . . the rest of the year!

The power of acknowledgement

I'm writing you today because you are a leader in a position to make a huge difference within your circle of influence.

I'd like to thank you in advance for a few moments of your time to introduce you to a true story we've portrayed in an online movie that we hope will change lives.  It is a reminder to us all to speak those compliments and acknowledgments as we are thinking them and not hold back because we just never know when … Our Presence May Be The Very Present Someone Needs.

Also on the note of bullying, if you're a Star Trek Fan (who didn't abandon ship when Next Generation begain airin), then you'll remember little Wesley Crusher.

His real name is Will Wheaton, and at the Denver Comic Con in 2013 he was asked by a little girl if he was ever bullied because he was a nerd, and if so, how did he deal with it.

His response was powerful and BRILLIANT advice for all of us - adults and children. I know I'll be saving this video for anytime I know somebody who gets bullied simply because they love things that are different than the mainstream.

The most beautiful way to stop bullying

That's what I call talent

That's what I call talent

When hyocrisy looks like piety...

When hypocrisy looks like piety
American composer Carlyle Floyd retells the story of the biblical Susannah in his opera set in rural Tennessee. Susannah is accused of bathing naked in a river, a sin in the eyes of “Christian” men who spy on her. Distraught, Susannah asks her brother, Sam, “What’s it all about?” “It’s about the way people is made, I reckon,” he responds. “An’ how they like to believe what’s bad. / How short they are on lovin’ kindness. / It must make the good Lord sad. . . . / At seein’ how men treat one another / An’ say they’re doin’ it all fer His sake.”

No more inner work for me. I quit

Chris Cade writes: Sometimes quitting can be a good thing. For example, I've decided to quit doing "inner work."

I know it'll be a tough shift. Especially since this is something I've done for so long. Still, I feel it's necessary.

WHY?

Because frankly speaking, I don't feel that the word "work" is an accurate representation of my experience.

It's easy to get stuck in a rut trying to "fix" ourselves. When we feel pain or see a blockage in our lives, the natural inclination is to try and do anything we can to remove the blockage or eliminate the pain.

In other words, we see ourselves as broken and we don't want to be that way. So we do "work" to try and dig ourselves out of the rut or fix what we perceive as broken.

Here's the deal though...

Are you ready for this?

We're not broken.

When we specifically think that there's some flaw in us that needs to be fixed, what we're really doing is limiting ourselves. We're unconsciously avoiding all the other possibilities for our personal growth so that we can focus on the part of us that feels flawed.

From my limited perspective, I feel that kind of thinking is actually flawed because it means we aren't allowing the Divine to reveal to us what we most need to see and know.

So what are we really doing when we focus on "inner work"?

TBD.

It's a beautifully perfect acronyn in this case. "To Be Determined" is exactly what happens when we place our faith in the Divine. We trust that the Divine will determine what we most need to know, see, experience, etc.

In this case though, TBD specifically stands for three things needed for the inner journey home:

1. Truth
2. Being
3. Deepening

Truth is the clarification of perception. It's allowing ourselves to let go of the ways in which we inaccurately see reality, and instead, focus on seeing exactly what it is, how it is, when it is, where it is, as it is.

Being is the orientation towards Presence. It's living in the Now. It's allowing ourselves to be exactly where we are with our attention focused on this moment. Journeying inwards without our Presence and Being is only going to be psychological, and therefore, inherently limited to just one aspect of our entire human potential. Psychological work without Presence creates a lot of ideas without any actual transformation or change.

Deepening is allowing ourselves to more fully experience the qualities of our true nature so that they can support our inner journey. Courage? Strenght? Joy? Compassion? We've all already got these qualities within us. Part of the inner journey is allowing Truth and Being to support us Deepening into those qualities.

Long story short...

I quit.

I'm not going to refer to these experiences as "inner work" anymore.

That kind of phrasing only sets our brains up to make this journey far more difficult than it needs to be.I choose to relax a little bit, give myself a break, and find en-joy-ment in discovering new things about myself and the world.

I'm not broken. You're not broken.

We are cosmic adventurers on a grand journey inwards...

Towards the center of our hearts...

Our souls...

And our greatest most beautiful potential. :)

We become what we think ...

An excerpt from The Strangest Secret
by Earl Nightingale

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them."

Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry—his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand—one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds—one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land...and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants—one corn, one poison.

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.