Doing Your Best V

"The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is but an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help him on his way; it will ever …

Continue reading Doing Your Best V

Doing Your Best IV

Successful people know how to connect the dots between their present situation and their future goals. That said, successful people are not always happy people, which I imagine occurs whenever one's goals are not well-aligned with true purpose. The ability to connect the dots is something we learn from a very early age. We practice …

Continue reading Doing Your Best IV

Doing Your Best III

In continuation of our consideration yesterday, I’d like to join William George Jordan in offering a few starting points for coming to the point where you can express unconscious grace in all that you do. To begin with, Jordan observed: “The man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a …

Continue reading Doing Your Best III

Doing Your Best II

There is no greater habit to develop than that of giving your best in everything you undertake, without excuse, pretense or apology. It is a simple matter, really, yet we in all of our intelligence tend to complicate it unnecessarily. We let our emotions take over, develop bad habitual reactions and develop prejudices over time …

Continue reading Doing Your Best II

Doing Your Best I

"If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially as a towering mountain peak …

Continue reading Doing Your Best I

Failure as a Success V

You do not need failure to know success. Likewise, you do not need pain to know pleasure, hate to know love or or darkness to know light. That said, both are available in abundance in the world we live in today, so learning to navigate both with dignity, balance and vision is of the utmost …

Continue reading Failure as a Success V

Failure as a Success IV

Your book of life will rightly contain a number of interesting and diverse chapters. Some lives are filled with more dramatic episodes of change than others, but no matter how you look at it, change is an inevitable part of life. My own life has moved through a number of distinct phases: my childhood, adolescence, …

Continue reading Failure as a Success IV

Failure as a Success III

The modern jets we fly on today are born of an accumulation of successes and failures over the decades. Aircraft designers constantly dream up new design elements in an effort to improve the safety, efficiency and handling characteristics of the aircraft we fly commercially, privately and in the military and some of them work while …

Continue reading Failure as a Success III

Failure as a Success II

Excerpt from "The Majesty of Calmness" by William George Jordan "Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental inspiration that will change us for all the later …

Continue reading Failure as a Success II

Self-Reliance IV

One of the side effects of cultivating self-reliance in yourself and in others is that you gain an inner reserve that comes no other way. This bank account of surplus confidence, faith and strength can be drawn upon or even invested in others during times of crisis. This is the quality that separates the fair-weather …

Continue reading Self-Reliance IV