Posts tagged Inspiration

Caine’s Arcade

— This video is so beautiful and inspiring. If you don’t feel happier after watching this, something is wrong with you!

Making the most of every moment

Amber Rae:

How can we, in our every day lives, skip a little more and sing and dance like no one else is watching?

These moments we have, we ought to enjoy them.

So true. And it’s a great reminder to stop, pause and make sure we’re enjoying life and not letting it swamp us.

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
Martin Luther King Jnr.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate…

I love this quote, it’s one of my favourite. It it often - wrongly - attributed to Nelson Mandela (who has never even quoted it!), and also featured in the film ‘Coach Carter’:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

— Marianne Williamson

Live a better story by engaging the world around you

More great wisdom from Joseph Thompson:

Whether we realize it or not our desires, no matter what they are, are tied up with the approval or acknowledgement of others.

Whether we want to be a successful musician, doctor, actor, architect, preacher, and the list goes on…the objective of that desire cannot be fulfilled without the involvement of others. To be a successful musician there must be an audience. To be a renowned doctor, there must be patients. To be an accomplished actor, preacher or anything else, there must be others before whom you perform.

So whatever your story is, remember that you cannot live life in a vacuum. People matter to the fulfillment of your desires and the success of your journey. Live a better story by engaging the world around you.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
John W. Gardner

I believe in Tim Tebow

Read this. And then imagine how our perception of Premier League footballers could be transformed if even just one or two stepped out their ego bubbles and behaved like this. More than that, imagine if WE chose to be this other focused.

Loving the MailChimp login page!

Loving the MailChimp login page!

"Cranking" - a moving, must read essay by Merlin Mann

This is such a moving personal essay about death and life and fatherhood and work and keeping sight of what’s really important.

(Clicking on the title will take you to the article.)

Learning + Sharing = Growth — I am convinced that one of the keys to learning and growing as a person is teaching. The process of sharing what you’ve learnt with someone else and teaching it to them reinforces what you yourself have learnt and takes it to a much deeper a level of understanding in your own mind. It was actually watching my daughter Eloise recently that served to reinforce how natural and innate it is to share what we learn with others.  Eloise, who has recently turned two, has a very cute teddy bear called Mich (we got him in Michigan). And it has been fascinating to watch how she has started to teach Mich everything that she’s been learning - how to eat, how to drink, how to go to sleep, how to do heads, shoulder, knees and toes, et cetera. It’s so funny to watch. Watching her take what she’s learning and help someone else learn it too (even if just a teddy bear!) is something she has done all by herself with no prompting. It’s natural. Something in her wiring is prompting her to do this. And that got me wondering. Do we lose some of this inclination to teach and share with others when we get older? Perhaps it’s the individualisation of our culture. Perhaps it’s the competitiveness of our culture. Regardless, it stikes me that we shoot ourselves in the foot when we keep what we learn to ourselves. We’ll find that we grow much more when we take the time to share what we’re learning with others. Why not give it a try? What have you learnt in the last week or so that you could pass onto someone else? And if you haven’t learnt anything new recently, why not?!

Learning + Sharing = Growth

—

I am convinced that one of the keys to learning and growing as a person is teaching. The process of sharing what you’ve learnt with someone else and teaching it to them reinforces what you yourself have learnt and takes it to a much deeper a level of understanding in your own mind.

It was actually watching my daughter Eloise recently that served to reinforce how natural and innate it is to share what we learn with others. 

Eloise, who has recently turned two, has a very cute teddy bear called Mich (we got him in Michigan). And it has been fascinating to watch how she has started to teach Mich everything that she’s been learning - how to eat, how to drink, how to go to sleep, how to do heads, shoulder, knees and toes, et cetera. It’s so funny to watch.

Watching her take what she’s learning and help someone else learn it too (even if just a teddy bear!) is something she has done all by herself with no prompting. It’s natural. Something in her wiring is prompting her to do this. And that got me wondering. Do we lose some of this inclination to teach and share with others when we get older?

Perhaps it’s the individualisation of our culture. Perhaps it’s the competitiveness of our culture. Regardless, it stikes me that we shoot ourselves in the foot when we keep what we learn to ourselves. We’ll find that we grow much more when we take the time to share what we’re learning with others.

Why not give it a try? What have you learnt in the last week or so that you could pass onto someone else? And if you haven’t learnt anything new recently, why not?!

Start with why

This video by Simon Sinek a great follow up to my ‘Focus on the why, not the what’ post from yesterday. Telling people what you do doesn’t inspire them; telling people why you do it does.

Focus on the why, not the what

Amber Rae:

What we do is far less important than why we do it. What we do changes and evolves over time. Why we do what we do gets to the core of our beliefs and deeper purpose. Clarity of why helps bring clarity of what. Consistency in why helps bring consistency in what. 

Spot on.

The people who change the world are the people who must. I am grateful to my mentor Alex McManus for this line. Put simply, it is not enough to have good ideas or to think about wanting to change the world. It is not enough to have noble intentions. It is not enough to want to change the world. All of us to some extent want this. Of course we do! But wanting something does not create change. Instead we must find that thing that resonates so deeply within us that we simply HAVE to do something. It’s as if there is no choice at all. We are compelled to act.  It is the people who identify this passion within them who truly change the world. Some may find this in championing a cause like bringing clean water to the millions around the world without. Others may find it in creating a product that makes untold numbers of people’s lives better or more efficient. There is no end to the possibilities. Don’t settle on what’s a good idea. Don’t focus on what people want. Discover the passion deep inside that you that you must upon pain of death do something about.

The people who change the world are the people who must.

I am grateful to my mentor Alex McManus for this line. Put simply, it is not enough to have good ideas or to think about wanting to change the world. It is not enough to have noble intentions. It is not enough to want to change the world.

All of us to some extent want this. Of course we do! But wanting something does not create change.

Instead we must find that thing that resonates so deeply within us that we simply HAVE to do something. It’s as if there is no choice at all. We are compelled to act. 

It is the people who identify this passion within them who truly change the world. Some may find this in championing a cause like bringing clean water to the millions around the world without. Others may find it in creating a product that makes untold numbers of people’s lives better or more efficient.

There is no end to the possibilities. Don’t settle on what’s a good idea. Don’t focus on what people want. Discover the passion deep inside that you that you must upon pain of death do something about.

Hopeless is never.

Hopeless is never.

What dreams are made of

Katie Portman:

Every single day, I’m either working, checking emails, thinking up new ideas, building relationships or aiming to achieve something else as a freelancer. I rarely – if ever- switch off and there’s never enough hours in the day. Freelancing inspires me, gets me out of bed in the morning and motivates me to be better, do more and raise my game. It may not to be to everyone’s liking, but for me, it’s what dreams are made of.

Freelancer or not, there’s much to be inspired by in Katie’s blog post. Going freelance may not be the right choice for everyone, but choosing to do something with our lives that motivates and inspires us is essential. We all need to find our best environment where we can truly thrive and live life to the full.

Don’t wait for it to happen; make it happen.