Category Archives: Success

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How Your Life Is Like The Tour de France

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The Tour de France is probably the most well known bicycle race in the world although there are many more. This is a race for only the most well conditioned riders. They have to prepare both physically and mentally for this 3 week long 2100 mile ride across France. But conditioning is only one part of the event. They have to create a vision and then a strategy to bring that vision to life. For some, the vision is just to finish the grueling race and for others it’s to win. Your life is very much like this race. Not only do you have to condition yourself and create a vision and a strategy but the race is like life. It’s long and takes stamina and courage to get through. It consists of 21 stages (days) with 2 rest days. There are easy days (the flat stages) where sprinters excel. And then there are the mountains (the Pyrenees and the Alps) where the sprinters have to work very hard to conquer but the climbers are in their prime. And then there are time trials – both team and individual time trials. Can you see how this parallels life? Let’s talk about this.

Your life is not a sprint. It’s a long race so you have to condition yourself for the long haul. Sprinters give everything they have in a short period of  time and then are spent after they finish. That may be what happens when we have a special event (a wedding, a work project, a vacation, etc), but we have to be ready to go through our entire life (the full 21 stages) and not be completely spent after a short race. The lesson here is to plan for the whole event (your life) by continuing to expand and revise your goals as you achieve each “stage” of your life. Each day, at the end of the day, is another time to review what’s happened that day (during that stage) and to plan for the next day’s ride through life.

Your life is filled with mountains but we call them challenges or obstacles. As with the Tour de France you can predict most of these and plan for them. How are you going to climb over the highest peaks in your life? Sprinters hate them, climbers love them – they go after them with enthusiasm and joy. Some of these climbs are almost completely vertical, hard to walk up to say nothing of racing a bicycle up them. You can’t just go out one day and think you’re going to make it up the highest pinnacle. You have to plan for everything that comes along. You create methods and plans for conquering the mountains that are in your life. That’s called being prepared. But it’s also about knowing what lies ahead and heading into it with strategy plus enthusiasm and excitement. You look forward to these challenges because you know that nothing can beat you.

There are time trials in your life too. The team time trials require everyone to work together in perfect harmony and synchronicity. This is how you deal with relationships in your life. This can be intimate relationships or those with friends or colleagues at work. Perhaps it’s a project you’re working on at work with a specific deadline. If everything is going well and you all get along and all your ideas are pooled together, you’ll win that time trial. Everyone complements the others. The same applies to the individual time trials. These are specific events in your life. Maybe it’s getting through a course to improve your knowledge and skill level so that your resume can be more complete. Maybe it’s writing a book. Whatever is your time trial, it has to be done by yourself (or with a team if it’s the team trial) and you’re judged by the speed with which you accomplish the task.

I’ve only touched on the various parts of the Tour but by now you can see what the parallels are. Your life is not a bike ride but you must condition yourself and plan for every obstacle that is possible. If you want to find out more about getting the most out of your life and changing your circumstances, check out The Art of Making Things Happen.

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What’s Missing In Your Life….The Story of My Dog

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I bet you’re wondering what on earth my dog has to do with what’s missing in your life….am I right?

What could an animal have to do with your life? What could an animal you don’t even know have to do with your life?

Grab a cup of tea or coffee and find out…

As some of you may remember, one of my two Siberian huskies died almost 2 years ago.  I was left with Jackie and things have been rough with her (health wise) for the past year…but that will come later.

I had Jackie and Crystal for 9 years before Crystal left us. I was always yelling at them…dead birds in the house – once there was a possum (fortunately I was away and my neighbor got the brunt of that wonderful woman that she is). I had to get bookcases with glass doors so they wouldn’t eat the books. I had to “doggie proof” the house every day when I went to work – put things away or push them away from the edge of the table or counter, close all the doors etc. Don’t get me wrong – I loved them but they were what I considered “typical” huskies – always in trouble.

Well, once Crystal left and it was just Jackie and me, I quickly realized that Jackie was THE PERFECT DOG. I have had dogs all my life and she is the most well behaved and really perfect dog I’ve ever seen. She does NOT get into anything, doesn’t catch things, doesn’t get up on the counter or table, doesn’t eat books etc. AND she follows commands. I was truly amazed…but also felt pretty guilty. Why? Because I had spent all these years yelling at both of them when it was really only Crystal that was being bad, not Jackie. I should have been loving her for being so special.

What had happened is what happens to many of us. We don’t look beyond the surface. We go along with a blind eye to the details or to what’s behind the external appearance. How often have you hear “don’t judge a book by its cover”? That’s the same thing. And I’ll tell you that that has happened to me more than once. I have had people ignore me in furniture stores or house shopping because I was wearing blue jeans or cut off shorts. But then when they find out I wanted to pay cash for the whole enchilada (if I stayed in that store – remember “Pretty Woman” where the lady wouldn’t wait on her and she had all that money to spend), their attitude was different.

So what should you do now? Take a look around you but don’t be in a hurry for once – we move way too fast in this world today. Look at things in your life but then look past the surface. Is there something beneath the surface that you are grateful for or that has more meaning than you think. What’s right there in front of you that you’ve been searching for all your life.  Have you read “Acres of Diamonds“? You should – it’s about a man who wanted to be rich and was searching all over his world for diamonds and sold his land to go search some more. Turns out there were diamonds all over his very own property but he had never looked there.

What riches are you missing out on because you’re not looking?

Once you find those riches, do not neglect them! Pay attention to what you love and find today.

Terrie

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The Cafeteria….again

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I know I’ve posted this before and even made a video about it but it’s such an important concept that I feel I should repeat it frequently. It’s about the Emmet Fox short quip called “The Cafeteria”:

Emmet Fox was pretty new to the United States.  He’d come from London, I believe, England.  He passed by a restaurant and thought “this really looks kind of nice.”

He went in and seated himself at the table and sat there waiting  for the waiter to come on and take his order.  Nothing happened, no one showed up, and he saw all these other people getting their food and he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

He felt something was wrong, and he was getting a bit perturbed, but he’s a very smart man and finally realized that this was a cafeteria although they didn’t have cafeterias yet in England, and he realized that he had to get up and go get his own food.

He made an entire story out of that with excellent meaning and purpose.

In New Thought a lot of people just decide they want something and say “you’re supposed to let God tell you what it is that you want to do, that he wants you to do.”

Metaphysically this means – if we had a banquet table in front of us, and we walked around it for hour after hour after hour, but never said “this is what I want“, we wouldn’t get the food.

We have to get specific and say what we want and make a decision. A lot of people have never learned to make a decision and say “this is what I want.”

If you wanted a car, and you would never say what kind of car you wanted, or the color, or anything else, you’re not going to get it.

Emmet Fox was sitting there and finally realized that he had to get up and go get it, get the food, that it wasn’t going to be brought to him, but it took his watching all the people around him to finally realize that.

You can have a lot of thoughts and ideas but if you never settle on one, never say “this one is what I want”, you’re not going to get it.

No matter how much you watch, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you say you want it, you have to get up and do it.

You have to take action.

Once Emmet Fox  realized that he had to get up and go get the food, he actually had to put his feet on the floor and go do it. The realization wasn’t still going to get him any food. He had to go get it.

Which is the whole idea we have behind the principles that we teach in New Thought – that we have to do something. We can pray, we can meditate, we can find information, we can choose what we want, but unless we actually do something, it’s going to be a long time that we’re just sitting there.

We have omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, and unless we put omniaction in, nothing happens.

We’re in a physical body to take action.

God is spirit.  God doesn’t have the hands and the feet. We’re the hands and the feet. We have to do something.

There’s a lot of people out there that sit and think, “I can create something or make something happen just by thinking it”. They have to be very far advanced for that to happen. They can get the idea from the universe, and it can be a pure idea eventually, but they actually have to implement it.

The more we know about metaphysics, the more we are responsible for.

We can know it and understand it, but we also take action.

Beginners, people who just get into it in the beginning, most frequently get  things right away because all of a sudden they’re getting a new approach to life.

But the more we get into it, the more we realize that for every thing that comes to us in our life, we have to have a change in our minds.

We have to change, have a change of opinion. We have to “let go”…..

We have to let go of “we can’t” and say we can. We have to let go of “not enough” in order to have enough. We have to let go of “poverty” in order to have plenty.

We learn these things. We begin to put these ideas and emotions into stopping the claiming of what we don’t want in our lives. We begin to claim what we do want in our lives and begin take whatever action is necessary.

There are people that say that the New Thought concepts and principles don’t work. Most likely if they have even tried it at all, they haven’t realized these  things from the past, their beliefs, their negative beliefs that they’re claiming, and therefore haven’t let go of them.  Those negative beliefs are anchors weighing you down when you’re trying to move around the ocean.

We’re being held back by our old beliefs and our old feelings and fears and anxieties, frustrations, thinking that we’re not supposed to or can’t or whatever reason we come up with.

What are you waiting for? Take action now!

Terrie

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Don’t Audit Life….

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Here’s a great thought – “Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of NOW.”

Does this hit home for you? I hope it does. I know that for me it certainly does. For example, this week I’ve been sick and even missed work for 3 days – highly unusual for me.

What did it teach me? It taught me to look at where I am right now, what I’m doing and what it all means. I think I had been pushing too hard at work and not enough about life.  After all I am not WORK, I am so much more. And so are you.

Do you just hang out hoping that things will change? I did. For the longest time it was always ‘when I lose weight.’ or “When I x, y, z, then I’ll do a, b, c”.  That is not living. That is existing and “auditing” life.

You have to invest yourself fully in life. Not just sit around and watch others live life.

Make a list of what you enjoy, what gives you pleasure and what would give you pleasure in your everyday existence. I bet that some of these things have to do with helping others or making others feel happier.  What if you just stopped someone and made them laugh or say thank you for something they’ve done – even if it’s part of their job.

Do you come home feeling satisfied? Do you enjoy what you do during the day? I know my day starts out with me and my dog and I love it when she talks to me. But then the real joy in my day starts when I go through the gate on the Army Post. The gate guards are terrific and I always try to make them smile and laugh – it’s either really cold or really hot out there (remember I’m in Texas) and these guys (and some gals) have to stand their for 8-12 hours doing the very same thing over and over again (checking ID cards and saying “welcome to Ft ….”). What can you do for someone like that?

What about your coworkers – what can you do to brighten up their day and make their jobs even more meaningful? Do you really look at their faces? Do they seem happy? Do they seem sad? What can you do to help them through their day? Can you reach out to them in some way?

Stop auditing what you’re doing and start participating!!!!

Let us know what’s happening.

Terrie