Inspiration 365 Days!

One day, a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart. It was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it.

Suddenly, an old man appeared and said, “Your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

The young man looked at the old man’s heart. It was beating strongly, but it was full of scars, jagged edges and holes. He laughed.

“You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine. Mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

I like to think BIG. And I like to do things that others have not done before.

What you don’t know are my motivations for dreaming so big.

It’s not about the money.

Sure, having money is better than NOT having money, but it’s not about the money.

It’s about what you can DO with the money.

And I’m not talking about bigger houses, faster cars or more gadgets.

I’m talking about investing in something far more valuable than these things.

I’m talking about investing in people.

I’m talking about making a difference in someone else’s life.

If the bread in the oven is a failure you lose a week; if the harvest is a failure you lose a year; if marriage is a failure then you lose a life.

— Estonian proverb

During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz.

I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?”

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.

Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

The Boss drives his men.
The Leader inspires them.

The Boss depends on authority.
The Leader depends on goodwill.

The Boss evokes fear.
The Leader radiates love.

The Boss says “I”.
The Leader says “We”.

The Boss shows who is wrong.
The Leader shows what is wrong.

The Boss knows how it is done.
The Leader knows how to do it.

The Boss demands respect.
The Leader commands respect.

Jerry, a young and strong woodcutter, had been out of a job for a while. Somehow, there wasn’t any vacancy wherever he asked. So Jerry wasn’t too hopeful when he approached the boss of a logging crew.

“Excuse me, sire,” Jerry asked sheepishly, “Do you have a job for me?”

Seeing that Jerry was pretty young and listless, the boss replied, “That depends. Let’s see you fell this tree first.”

Hesitantly, Jerry took the axe from the boss. The moment the axe was in his hand, Jerry was a changed man. He was full of energy and confidence. With one big step he stood in front of the tree and skillfully felled it in no time.

Think of a car driving through the night. The headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet.

And that’s how life tends to unfold before us. If we just trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, your life will keep unfolding. And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you want it.

Not so long ago, teen Ashley Qualls lived in a one-bedroom apartment with her mom and sister. But with her computer and savvy business sense she made a better life for all of them.

Ashley Qualls doesn’t sound like a typical high school student. Maybe that’s because the 17-year-old is the CEO of a million-dollar business.

Ashley is the head of whateverlife.com, a website she started when she was just 14 — with eight dollars borrowed from her mother. Now, just three years later, the website grosses more than $1 million a year, providing Ashley and her working class family a sense of security they had never really known.

A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin’ on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One’s headed for vacation, one for higher education,
An’ two of them were searchin’ for lost souls.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
An’ eighteen wheelers can’t stop on a dime.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there’s not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It’s what you leave behind you when you go.