Commuteducation -- On a Journey of Self-Development to Extraordinary Achievement

International Children's Day -- Bilaal Rajan's Barefoot Challenge

2011-06-01T23:32:00.000-04:00

Thank you Bilaal for giving us something to think about. I took your suggestion to try the Barefoot Challenge to observe International Children's Day, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORB0AFWeQ4Y).

Walking around barefoot on in my own home and yard on a beatiful day isn't quite something I can pretend was any kind of sacrifice. What this experiment did do was it made me very aware of how much difference there is between "when" and "if ever." It was easy for me to put off until tomorrow what I need to wear shoes for, like going into a bank or government office or even a department store. I decided to wait until tomorrow also to do some transplanting in the garden that I had been thinking about, rather than trying to force a spade intot the ground with my unprotected sole. I did notice when I walked on the street that the asphalt was almost unbearably hot so I jumped back into the car - because I had one to jump back into.

This experience today helped me to think about what I couldn't do today, but will do tomorrow "when" I can wear shoes. It helped me to realize what I might not get to do if I had to wonder "if ever" I would have shoes.

Thank you Bilaal Rajan for this simple challenge to help us realize how lucky we are and to help us think of others who are less fortunate and especially for helping us think of ways to get shoes to children who will love to have them.

Congratulations and thank you for the inspiration to others too who have met the challenge and learned from it also. Baring our soles today has hopefully helped us take steps toward finding ourselves. We will be better prepared in days to come, with or without shoes of our own, to choose which is the right way to go when we come to a fork in the road, or to blaze a new trail if there isn't already a path that leading to a better world for everyone.

Thank you so much Bilaal on International Children's Day for helping us find our way to what really matters.

Ardently,

Kathleen

"The Path to Riches" by Judith Williamson & Contributing Authors

2011-05-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers Seeking Inspiration and Success,

Sometimes we get to ourightly marvel in the chance to share something that is what I like to call "over-the-top." I got the term from my husband when he said to me one day that I was a little over the top. Whether he intended the compliment or not, I was grateful for it.

Today, with gratitude for every challenge and triumph that has patterned my being, my spirits are lifted a little beyond over the top. I am thankful to Judith Williamson and the Napoleon Hill Foundation and all my fellow contributing authors. I am beyond delighted and honoured to share here my chapter in the recently published book, The Path to Riches in Think and Grow Rich, as follows:

The Secret for Everyone
By Kathleen Betts
Toronto, Canada

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

As seekers of success and happiness, many of us have had the good fortune to stumble on Dr. Napoleon Hill’s lifework or to have it shared with us by someone we knew who learned and profited from the philosophy and instructions he outlined in his flagship book, Think and Grow Rich. Dr. Hill invitingly scattered clues throughout the chapters and assured us that, “Somewhere, as you read, the secret to which I refer will jump from the page and stand boldly before you, IF YOU ARE READY FOR IT! When it appears, you will recognize it. Whether you receive the sign in the first or the last chapter, stop for a moment when it presents itself, and turn down a glass, for that occasion will mark the most important turning-point of your life.” If this eye-opening moment is so momentous as to justly cause pause for thought as the life-altering revelation Dr. Hill touts it to be, how can some of us read all the way through the book, possibly more than once, and still not have it jump out at us?

As an enthusiast of Dr. Hill’s lifework, this writer is honored to contribute to these testimonials with ardent hope of helping readers find their answer. Having thought I saw the secret first on page 40 of my copy, in the words, “by giving before you try to get,” I finally pronounced a celebratory “Aha!” and I turned down my glass at page 115, when I read “giving in return an equivalent value of one form or another.” What I had been looking for appeared to jump off the page. If uncovering the secret could be done by simply referring others to the pages where we found it, there would be no purpose or substance for the book you have in hand. Dr. Hill’s instructions helped me clarify my objective and espouse the principles vital to achieving it. It was when my own idea of what exactly I wanted to have and to do became clear to me that I was able to understand and see what Dr. Hill’s secret was.

As cosmic habit force, I begin any discussion on success with my primary achievement of being the luckiest mother in the world to my four precious children and hoping that all other parents share the same sense for themselves. Another extraordinary achievement I wouldn’t miss incorporating in this discussion is that of having this chance and honor to hopefully inspire others who are on their journey to succeed. It has become one of my greatest passions to share Dr. Hill’s philosophy, especially with those who are ready to Think and Grow Rich, or are preparing to be ready, as is presumably the case with readers of this very material. I am ever grateful for your interest and hopeful that what you’re reading will permit you to turn down your glass soon too in recognition of marking the most important turning point in your life.

Piquing our eager curiosity, in his introductory pages, Dr. Hill stated “The secret to which I refer has been mentioned no fewer than a hundred times throughout this book.” With the answer before us no fewer than one hundred times, surely finding it should be easier than the needle-in-the-haystack search it feels like as we pore over every word with anticipation. Dr. Hill further counseled: “It has not been directly named, for it seems to work more successfully when it is merely uncovered and left in sight, where those who are ready, and searching for it, may pick it up.” Through the course of our read-to-reap-fortune venture, at times, we suppose we have cracked the mystery only to find it either zaps or fades slowly from the catch of our mind’s eye. The “secret” can seem to be an enigma-wrapped-in-a-puzzle conundrum. Maybe what’s happening is a subconscious lost-in-the-woods feeling is leaving us unable to see the trees for the forest.

Ironically, the secret is so obvious, our grasp of it can be tenuous because of a that-can’t-really-be-all-there-is-to-it skepticism we summon when we have flickering thoughts of “maybe that’s it.”
Some of the perplexity is attributable to the term “secret.” If instead of calling it a secret, we called it “what is blatantly obvious,” we may find it easier to understand. Our very thoughts create the shroud we think up in our minds by calling it a secret. One of the clues that Dr. Hill offered in the “Imagination” chapter was that, “Strange and paradoxical as it may seem, the ‘secret’ is not a secret.” He further counseled in his next paragraph: “Above all, do not stop, nor hesitate in your study of these principles until you have read the book at least three times, for then, you will not want to stop.”

Paradoxically or intrinsically, our challenge in conclusively seizing the secret is conjoined to the constantly changing ideas, thoughts and beliefs that pass through our minds. Adding to the complexity is the combined element of our personal experiences, burning desires, goals, objectives, dreams, and temporary defeats all being inextricably linked to what we believe qualifies as or defines success. These constantly changing factors create a moving target effect with the result of our stronghold on the “secret” waxing and waning. This morphing in our minds, as it turns out, is a robust clue. Once we have a clear picture in our minds of a static objective and a lucid personal definition of success, we are more likely ready to see the secret jump from the pages.

It’s helpful to consider tips from other greats who either influenced or were influenced by Dr. Hill. One of particular note and unmatched in his eloquence, was Ralph Waldo Emerson who penned countless insightful and inspiring essays and poems on the subject.

What is Success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a child,
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Earl Nightingale told us "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Or in some cases the pursuit of a worthy ideal." His definition leads us to understand that anyone who's on course toward the fulfillment of a goal is already enjoying success, if they will allow themselves the liberty to accept the concept. Reinforcing his definition, Mr. Nightingale elaborated, “Now, success doesn't lie in the achievement of a goal, although that's what the world considers success; it lies in the journey toward the goal. We're successful as long as we're working toward something we want to bring about in our lives. That's when the human being is at his or her best. That's what Cervantes meant when he wrote, ‘The road is better than the inn.’ We're at our best when we're climbing, thinking, planning, working. When we're on the road toward something we want to bring about.”

More recently, Jack Canfield tells us that “Life is not about achievement, it's about learning and growth, and developing qualities like compassion, patience, perseverance, love, and joy, and so forth.” Consider that "learning and growth, and developing qualities like compassion, patience, perseverance, love, and joy" are at once achievements in and of themselves while also being the means to other ends of more tangible or measurable goals. What a wonderful world to live in if in years to come, we could all make that stretch.

Recalling that success is subjective wherein what one considers meager, another considers opulent, what we’re really after here is the secret to what most of us consider to be extraordinary success. It’s worth noting nonetheless that giving ourselves credit for these salt-of-the-earth simpler successes puts us in good stead to be ready for extraordinary success. The secret to success of any magnitude is what one believes it to be. The complexity stems from the simplicity. It only seems difficult to grasp because we think there must be more to it. I would suggest that the evasiveness of what we think we should easily see emanates from within each one of us. It’s personal and subjective to a much greater degree than it is objective. What the secret is may differ as much for each of us as the point in time of reading at which our “aha moment of thought” might occur to us. Steadying one of the targets, by clarifying in our minds what success means to us and accepting that it is a process and not a destination, makes it easier to think our way through what the secret is. Burning desire was a key that Dr. Hill repeated emphatically. In setting the goals we will use to measure our success, we have to think in terms of our true burning desires.

As a point to ponder on burning desire, I recall a day about twenty years ago when I was visiting with friends and ogling over luxurious boats at a yacht club in British Columbia. One had a particular allure for me and I snapped a shot of it, thinking when I’m ready for a boat, that’s the one I want. I’ve often thought about that boat over the years and felt a little twinge of disappointment in myself over not having met my goal to acquire it. It dawned on me one day that mingled in with that sense of disappointment were some other stronger sentiments like “What would I do with it? Where would we keep it? How often would we get a chance to use it? How much does a boat like that pollute the environment?”

I still love boats and anything that gets me closer to the water and don’t begrudge anyone else the enjoyment they get from theirs. What a relief it was though one day when I realized my sense of disappointment at not having the boat was so irrational. I had never had a true burning desire to have that boat. It was more of a mixture of emotions wherein the doubtful thoughts I had actually outweighed my desire to have the boat. I relate this experience now as the realization serves as a useful tool for me and I hope it will for others too in differentiating between true burning desires with associated goals and whims of fancy based on what might popularly be considered a symbol of success.

There's no measure of failure in not owning a yacht for anyone who doesn’t have a burning desire to own a yacht. Does that make sense? It works with anything you can think of. It doesn't have to be a yacht. It can be a career or professional objective, a financial goal, a relationship, material possessions, etc… It’s likely we have less trouble figuring out what the secret is and more trouble figuring out what our goals are and what metrics to use to measure our success.

Dr. Hill instructed us to attune ourselves to our truest desires and to rigorously incorporate the principles he developed to help us find ways to turn our thoughts into reality. All of the elements of the philosophy are entwined to each other and end up having an inter-dependence or reinforcing effect on each other. While it may be far-fetched to expect that commonly they can all be mastered, it is evident in the analysis of those who have achieved remarkable success, omitting any one of them even temporarily will weaken our endeavors. Focusing on some more than others is not the same as omitting any. It’s natural and advisable to gravitate to the principles that come more easily to us. There is a trick though to not letting those that require more effort go by the wayside entirely. Dr. Hill provided us examples of how the individuals he researched over the years had different strengths and adhered more strictly to some principles than others.

The principles that resonate most with me are those in the category of personal integrity, including the golden rule. Part of the secret to success is to figure out which elements of the principles resonate most with individual characters and goals. One of the examples of extraordinary successes that Dr. Hill referenced was the story of Arthur Nash, a tailor from Cincinnati who used his nearly bankrupt business to test the success formula. Having researched Mr. Nash myself in preparing this chapter, I was astonished to find how salient the message was of his clear understanding of the secret as I see it. Anyone looking for ideas or inspiration to help them uncover the secret might find it useful to study his story.

Once we have our clear idea of what our goals are, we must pursue them relentlessly without compromising our morals or integrity, always with consideration to the impact our actions and decisions will have on others affected by our words and our thoughts or by what we do or what we fail to do. By weighing our decisions on a scale of “What’s in it for everyone?” we find the guidance we need to stay the course of integrity in all our transactions. When we meet goals resulting in net gains for all who are effected, our success is multiplied exponentially. It makes perfect sense by business and or humanitarian standards. The more people are served by our goals, the more likely we are to succeed.

If we compromise integrity or ideals or if the adverse effects of any steps one takes to achieve his or her goals outweigh the overall benefits, then failure rather than success is what the attainment of those riches amounts to. When we predicate our actions and decisions on the inspiration and driving force of the fifth element of Napoleon Hill’s Self-Confidence Formula, we are guided to progress toward our goals in manners that are reflective of the composite of principles Dr. Hill promoted as necessary constituents to the secret of success. The powerful message enveloped in his words can be used as a personal barometer, compass, map, communicator and propeller all wrapped up in one handy implement more versatile than the most recent electronic gadgetry of the day.

For those who don’t have it committed to memory, the wording is as follows:

“I fully realize that no wealth or position will long endure, unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success.”

Following Dr. Hill’s prescription for success does not mean that we will not encounter obstacles along the way. Having challenges and adversities in our life of course does not equate to failure. In his book entitled Set Yourself on Fire, Phil Taylor who is my dear friend and an emerging force in the field of self-development, included a chapter on “The Gift of Adversity.” In his words, “I look back and delight in my difficulties, for they have been my teachers, and have been the very motivation that spurs me forward in the pursuit of these two life-enhancing principles.” If we are looking for seeds of opportunity in our challenges, our prospects for success are enhanced. Considering every adversity carries with it a seed of equal or greater opportunity, instead of lamenting we should be clicking our heels to the count of our blessings when we react to our challenges. What goes wrong is the kick-start to almost all the products and services that have turned lucrative dividends for those who react by seizing the opportunity to find a solution through a “what’s-in-it-for-everyone?” mentality.

That’s not to say either that it’s easy to overcome every challenge we’ll meet. As early readers, we may have learned from Dr. Seuss in Oh the Places You’ll Go, that there will be slumps we’ll have to go through. We then have to find the courage and conviction to do what Dr. Seuss brilliantly termed “unslumping ourselves.” As an aside, that might well be the most useful information the good fortune of contributing to this book will allow me to share with readers, Dr. Seuss is an exceptional motivator who clearly must have grasped Dr. Hill’s secret. The tremendous collection of children’s stories he created reminds me of the lessons from Malcolm Hillgartner and Robert Fulghum who both have inspired us to think about how all and everything we need to know, we learned in Kindergarten. Not to slight the value of commitment to lifelong learning, those early years set the foundation for our success.

Thinking back to how to get “unslumped,” when you take everything you have in life and put it on a scale, if what you love and wouldn’t change for the world outweighs what needs improvement, count those blessings as successes and draw from that powerful place the strength to get out of the rut and back on the path to achieving goals. If the scale tips the other way, it will require even greater effort and would be a good idea to draw strength from the examples of others. An element of the secret is that we are all successful until we quit. We are learning from our adversities and finding in them the opportunities that exist to make the world a better place for ourselves and for others.

We can still live the dreams we envisioned even when some days don’t go the way we would like them to. We’re exactly where we are as a result of the complement of decisions we’ve made along the way. By choosing to surround ourselves with people we admire and who inspire us to want to improve ourselves, we fortify our means to progress toward our goals. We have surround ourselves with sufficient positive influence to make a greater impact on us that whatever negative influences might be in our midst. By dosing ourselves with a daily fortifier of inspiration, we can find the strength we need to propel ourselves toward our goals and not only ward off negative influences but equip ourselves to instead have a positive influence on others who will likely appreciate the leadership. If in good conscience we can look in the mirror and smile at that person with pride, we’re on the right path to finding the secret and to whatever extraordinary success we truly believe we can achieve.

Truth be known, the secret might appear before us on any page in the book because it resides in our own thoughts and ideas, to be projected onto something before our eyes. There is definitely an increased likelihood that the realization will “jump out” at us while we’re reading Think and Grow Rich because Dr. Hill’s systematized principles are an excellent tool to evoke whatsoever we believe to be the secret and howsoever we define success, both of which come from within each one of us. Once the idea crystallizes in our minds, success is inevitable when we adhere to the principles. The secret is in keeping the idea crystal clear and maintaining the personal rigor and constitution it requires to consistently adhere to the principles.

Reading Think and Grow Rich at least three times, as suggested by the author, helps us to the open our minds sufficiently and establish or instill in ourselves the habits and strength of conviction we need to relentlessly pursue success. By immersing our mental attitude in positive influences, adhering to the credo that “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits” and committing ourselves to lifelong engagement to transactions that benefit all whom they affect, the so-called secret to success will become so naturally unshrouded, we’ll be left wondering instead how we could ever have thought there were any obstacles that were not in fact stepping stones to the extraordinary successes we see in the achievements of others we admire. In what we do to try to make the world better for everyone, we can’t help but to make it better for ourselves too.

The very essence of success is the relentless pursuit of it. So to speak, we have to let success go to our heads, although not in the figurative sense. Perhaps more accurately, we have to let it come from our heads in the form of ideas we believe will be helpful to the world we live in. After all, as Dr. Hill mentioned in some words or another in every chapter of Think and Grow Rich, “Whatever the mind can conceive, and believe, it can achieve.” It’s beautiful. Shall we turn down a glass?

This excerpt is reprinted with permission from the The Path to Riches in Think and Grow Rich, published by the
Napoleon Hill Foundation, March 2011, pp 141-49. The book is available through Amazon at: www.amazon.com/Path-Riches-Think-Grow-Rich/dp/0983000816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305654144&sr=8-1

Developing a Lifelong Positive Mental Attitude — Now That’s Entertainment

2011-05-05T23:14:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers and Lovers of All Things Inspiring,

As an avid reader, admirer, contributor and Board Member for Good News Toronto, I had the very good fortune to have a recent submission published in the May 2011 edition as a Letter to Editor, at http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/2011/05/may-2011-editors-message/.

I'm sharing these words here too as it is my passion to promote Good News Toronto and to have the hope of inspiring anyone else who might marvel in the positive influence of the stories of the everyday heroes featured in its pages. I'm dually delighted with this entry as it graced me the pleasure of praising an everyday hero not from Toronto but who has had significant positive influence on Torontonians as well as others from all over the globe, Dr. Napoleon Hill.

As printed in Good News Toronto May 5, 2011:

Entertaining readers with stories of everyday heroes who live in our midst, Good News Toronto aims to foster the beautiful benefits of saturating souls with inspiration through the strength we draw from the achievements of others who reach their benevolent goals. The purpose of our affectionately termed Little Paper with a Big Heart was to complement mainstream media with real good news stories of the heroes among us who might otherwise have gone unsung. For readers, contributors, and heroes whose stories and charitable or not-for-profit organizations have been featured, the potential collateral gains are exponential.

For us who are on the lifelong journey to achieve success, inspiration is an indispensable means of fuelling the energy needed to reach our lofty goals. Daily doses of inspiration to keep us moving forward are as essential as routine stops at the gas station are to keep our vehicles going. Like eating, sleeping, bathing, and all the other to-dos we repeat daily to keep ourselves well, inspiration sharing can be engrained in our psyche as part of our Positive Mental Attitude (PMA.)

When where we are might feel like a struggle at times, a PMA can be the single most significant factor in determining what our destiny will be. A most salient benefit of PMA is that it helps us actualize the power of our potential to capitalize on challenges. Respectably noting the achievements of one of the greatest forces ever in the realm of PMA, an all-time most significant influence comes from Napoleon Hill. To kick-start a lifelong commitment, the greatest favour a neophyte to PMA can do for themselves is to read his flagship book, Think and Grow Rich. In the book, Hill recommends readers recite out loud daily a confidence formula he developed. An excerpt from the fifth component is most compelling:

“I realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will attract to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself.”

These few lines capture the essence of the values of integrity, respect, and leadership to empower us with what we need to make all things possible. By simply asking ourselves, “What’s in it for everyone?” we can find the illumination and the clarity we need to stay on the right path in the lifelong journey toward success and happiness through service to others.

It is the honour of Good News Toronto to serve those who are looking for the inspirational fodder they need to fuel belief in their abilities to get to exactly where they want to be. Sweet success is when our own achievements serve in turn to propel others who bear witness and become inspired to recognize and accept invitations to succeed, especially when they’re cloaked in life’s challenges. This GNT contributor and beneficiary is thankful to the everyday heroes who have graced the pages and motivated a goal to respectably rival the monumental impact of Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen’s Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Celebrating the everyday heroes among us is the best live entertainment you can get. We hope you’re enjoying the show. Please stay tuned.

Kathleen Betts, mother of four, freelance writer, and blogger

Tending My Garden

2011-04-26T13:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Fellow Lovers of All Things Inspiring,

Spring is sprung!!! It's beautiful. My Commuteducation blog has been in hibernation. I'm digging deep and finding the time of day I need to do what I love on this Commuteducation garden path from where I am to where I want to be with everyone else too who is hyped to move onward and upward...

I was inspired today by so many of my inspirers, one of my faves of all time being Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, "When I go into my garden and dig deep with my shovel, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should do with my own hands."

I love words that make me go "Wow!" Hope others will find these words will help you dig deep too and maybe even go "Wow!"

Digging up a little dirt can sure help us find our ways to the aesthetic and fragrant treats our backyard and spiritual gardens grow when we're looking for what's good about others and what we can do to be better ourselves.

Happy rainy day Monday!!!

Wow,

Kathleen

Back to Good News

2010-09-21T10:25:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers Searching for Inspiration in September,

With the "busyness" that is inherent to "back-to-school" in a family with four grade-school kids, we've been bustling. It's hectic for sure and helps me appreciate all the more the inspiring stories of the everyday hereos featured in the September issue of Good News Toronto at www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

Amid all the bustle, I've been meaning to post this link since the first week. The good news is, these inspiring stories never seem to stale. It's always delightful to read about what's wonderful in our community. Sharon Hampson from Sharon, Lois and Bram is the September cover hero.

Hope readers will enjoy this issue as much as I have. The October issue is going to be one of the most exciting ever with a chance to nominate your favourite GTA everyday hero. The details will be available on the site and in the good old hard copy issue. Please contact info@goodnewstoronto if you would like to know more about it. The most popular nominee will be featured on the cover of a future issue. If you have a hero in mind, this is a great opportunit to give that special someone the recognition they deserve and to promote the noble causes of these inspiring individuals. Sometimes when something looks too good to be true, it's worth looking into.

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts

Adversity versus Opportunity

2010-08-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit. -- Napoleon Hill

If you've had a challenge that you transformed into an opportunity to help yourself and others, I would be honoured if you would report it here as a comment or write to me at commuteducation@lycos.com.

I'm collecting stories of inspiration that I hope will help anyone facing challenges to find the strength and encouragement to grow and to make the world even better than it already is. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!

Ardently,

Kathleen

The Power of Apology -- Blog Entry by Chris Brogan dated March 18,2009

2010-08-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

Earlier this evening while I was browsing for a quote I needed for a piece I was drafting, I stumbled on a blog entry by Chris Brogan in March of 2009. The title of the blog entry was "The Power of Apology." With a sense of the deep-rooted value of the philosophy and practice of the power of apology, I was compelled to read the entry that can be found at this link: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-power-of-apology/.

Incited by the simple and compelling message of the entry, I was inspired to post the following as a reply. I'm pasting it as is into my own blog now in hopes that this recount of an experience I've long been meaning to share will also be of value to anyone who may stumble upon the link to Chris' blog or to the reply comments that I and others were inspired to post.

Thank you Chris for prompting me to finally write about and share this profound learning experience.

Stymied by apology... Thank you for this inspiring reminder of the power of apology. Your message has inspired me to share an experience that was profoundly telling. I hope by sharing it here it will help others who might stumble upon it to gain a better understanding and appreciation of just how powerful an apology can be.

I was doing an impromptu role play with a fellow Toastmaster on the theme of conflict management. My direction in the role play was to act as a co-worker whose idea had been stolen, with the other character having accepted full credit and accolades from superiors. As we became embroiled in the passion of our role-play exercise, my emotions were quite truly stirred, as though I was really feeling the hurt and betrayal one would sense in a similar real-lief situation. I felt myself taking ownership of the role and of the feelings of resent and anger and hurt that were brewing in me. It became easier and easier for me to strengthen my debate, as I vehemently listed my points in a verbal attack on my opponent.

I wondered how we were ever going to wrap up the impromptu role-play as my resolve and my voice and my anxiety were all mounting in a crescendo toward crisis, as was hers with each attempt she made to refute my retributional verbal assaults on her integrity and moral character having inflicted incalculable torment on the instantly vanished value of our friendship (or at least the value of the friendship of the characters we were role playing.)

As our time was almost up, I wondered really how we were possibly going to have any success with the exercise in which the objective was to manage our conflict and to develop a resolution. Although we were only role playing, our emotions were running high and the fast-approaching deadline by which we had to resolve the matter was adding to our sense of stress. Suddenly, my fellow Toastmaster's character had a stroke of genius. She simply said, "It sounds like I've really upset you and that wasn't what I had set out to do. I apologize for hurting you. Maybe we could go together to our boss and explain this situation so that you can get the credit you deserve."

Honestly, I was dumb-founded. I was utterly speechless. My character's anger melted and my resentment was now vanishing at a rate proportionally inverse to which my respect and hope for fulll recovery of our friendship was now mounting. It was beautiful.

We wrapped up our conflict management impromptu role play with a successful resolution before the deadline. It seemed strikingly easy. It makes me wonder if in real life there were such deadlines by which one or the other of the parties involved in a dispute would have to come up with the stroke of genius to apologize when they have offended somone, there might be alot less mounting of tension and hostility that often results from the snowball effect of what may have begun as a relatively trivial slight. The detrimental and compound negative affects of trivial slights or wounds that are allowed to fester without the treatment they need; i.e. apology, run the risk of becoming incurable with the passage of time.

Ideally, heartfelt apologies expressed at early onset of the hurt that others may be feeling as a result of our actions can readily stave off ailing relations. Under less than ideal circumstances nonetheless, where the ailment of a relationship may have advanced to a terminal diagnosis, there is of course always hope for a miracle cure that could result from a heartfelt apology at any time before whatever the dealine may be.

With apologies for what turned about to be a much lengthier enry than originally intended, I thank you for your interest.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Issue 182, July 16, 2010

2010-07-27T00:53:00.001-04:00

What's In It For Everyone?

The positive mental attitude promoters who inspired Napoleon Hill and then those who have been inspired by him, incline many of us in turn to find the pathway from who we are and where we are to where we strive to end up, as happier people in happier places. When who we are and where we are can feel like a struggle at times, one of the most salient benefits of a positive mental attitude is that it helps us to realize and actualize the powerful truth of our potential to capitalize on our challenges.

A quote I read recently from Mike Dooley strikes a chord in this vein. "What if the word victim could be redefined into something closer to hero, recognizing that the paths some have tread will spare others from the same?" With a turning-adversity-into-triumph mindset, we can be on the lookout for opportunities to contribute to the greater good for all. We enrich our own lives through offering our help and services to others, as much as our lives are enriched by those who offer us their help and services. It's beautiful.

As a visionary of the beautiful benefits to all that can be derived through recognition and admiration of heroes, Eva Karpati, the founding editor and publisher of Good News Toronto (www.goodnewstoronto.ca) was so impressed by the notion of the strength that readers could draw from benevolent achievers, that she started her little paper with big heart to celebrate the multitude of inspirational people who live in our midst, with "the goal of motivating all of us to keep our city rich." Good News Toronto has been helping readers "think and grow rich" by celebrating our everyday heroes and inspiring readers since February of 2008, when Eva saw an opportunity to complement mainstream media gloom and doom stories with the very real good news stories that might otherwise regrettably be going unreported. To Good News Toronto readers, contributors and heroes whose stories and charitable or not-for-profit organizations have been featured, Eva herself, humble as she is, has become one of our everyday heroes worthy of bravura celebration.

Perhaps, with others of like mind in cities and communities around the globe, similar "Good News" publications all over the world could have a dream-come-true-style monumental impact of the likes of Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen's Chicken Soup for the Soul series. In June of 2010, I was elated to meet in person and learn from Jack Canfield when the owner of Cosmyc Vybes, my friend Nancy Allen, who is a yoga and zumba instructor and fitness and nutrition guru extraordinaire, invited me along as her guest to attend Steve and Bill Harrison's Quantum Leap conference in Philadelphia. It was fabulous to be in the company of so many exceptionally inspiring and highly-motivated individuals. Not surprisingly, like so many other self-development industry leaders we admire today, Jack Canfield too was influenced and inspired by the teachings of Napoleon Hill and Clement Stone.

For we who are on the lifelong journey to achieve success, inspiration is an indispensable means of energizing us to reach our definite objectives. Daily doses of inspiration to keep us moving toward our goals are as essential and need to be as routine as stops at the gas station are to keep our vehicles going. The beauty lies in that unlike the residual toxic gas fumes that pollute the environment when we fill our gas tanks, the enduring second-hand effects of everyday heroics, and acts of kindness and courage are that we all can learn and be inspired by the goals and achievements of others. Our own achievements serve in turn as the inspirational refueling that will serve as motivation to the witnesses of our actions. Like eating, sleeping, bathing, and all the other to-dos we repeat daily to keep ourselves as well as we can be, inspiration sharing needs to be engrained in our routines, as "cosmic habit force."

One of my all-time favourite motivational messages from Napoleon Hill comes from the fifth component of his confidence formula. "I realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will attract to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself." These few lines capture well the values of integrity and respect, to empower us with what we need to make all things possible.

My six-year-old son brilliantly blurted in proud revelation recently, "The only thing that's impossible is that there's anything that's impossible." On another occasion, one of my children once told me he knew he was safe when his father had to go away for a few days on business trips without the family, because Daddy always put up a "horse field" around our house when he was leaving on one of his trips. Fortunately, in his innocent belief, it didn't matter to my young son that what Daddy had said was "force field" and it didn't matter that there wasn't a horse field or a force field around our house. What mattered was just that he believed there was and that made him feel safe, secure and confident. What mattered was that to him, his father was an everyday hero who could do anything and from that he drew the strength he needed to overcome his fear. While my children's decrees made me smile, and may have been overstatements, they serve as excellent emotional, mental and even physical kinesthetic fortifiers. We can choose to believe that something can be real, even before it is. "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, you can achieve." While some believe that's hogwash, it's a concept familiar and inspiring to long-time Napoleon Hill enthusiasts and neophytes alike all around the world.

For die-hard skeptics who remain positive that the whole world of personal development through a positive mental attitude is nothing more than hogwash, there is the risk they likely will find they're right too. Having had the wondrous adventure of making the leap from skeptic to rhapsodic about the virtues of the personal development industry and the benefits of immersion in positive influences, it's my dear hope and honour to serve others who will accept my encouragement and belief in their abilities to get from where they are to exactly where they want to be too. By simply asking ourselves, "What's in it for everyone?" we can find the illumination and the clarity we need to stay on the right path in the lifelong journey toward success and happiness, always with integrity. That's good news for all of us everywhere.

When Judy Williamson, Director of Education at the Napoleon Hill World Learning Center at Purdue University Calumet, gave me the good news that this guest submission would be published on July 16, in the e-zine, "Napoleon Hill -- Yesterday and Today", I was delighted as the date is always a special day in our family and gives me one more excellent opportunity to wish a happy birthday to two of my everyday heroes, my Dad, Chris on his 65th and my son Garrett, on his 9th, and to wish everyone a wonderful and inspiring day, filled with good news.

For a subscription to "Napoleon Hill -- Yesterday and Today", go to www.naphill.org. For a subscription to Good News Toronto, go to www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

Best wishes dear readers for all good news and inspiration.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good News in July

2010-07-24T19:05:00.000-04:00

"Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit." – Henry David Thoreau

Ah summertime. It's a great time to kick back with a refreshing smoothie and to be delighted and inspired by reading the stories of the everyday heroes in Good News Toronto at www.goodnewstoronto.ca. If you prefer to have and to hold a hard copy in the hamac while you swing and relax under the shade listening to your favourite tunes of the lazy hazy days, please get in touch at info@goodnewstoronto.ca, so your delivery can be arranged.

Enjoy!

Ardently,

Kathleen

More Good News -- June 2010

2010-06-06T11:38:00.000-04:00

“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.” - James Russell Lowell

These perfect June days, no matter how perfect they may be, are perfect for reading Good News Toronto and getting ourselves inspired by the stories of the everyday heroes who live in our midst.

Read it on-line at www.goodnewstoronto.ca or let me know if you would like a hard copy to have and to hold for your reading pleasure.

Good News Toronto invites readers to submit stories of your own everyday heroes and to report random acts of kindness. It's a great way to pay tribute to someone you know and admire for what they do to make our world as good as it is.

Please write to info@goodnewstoronto.ca to share your stories.

Ardently,

Kathleen

In the Merry Merry Month of May

2010-05-15T16:16:00.000-04:00

Hello Dear Seekers of Inspiration.

It's the merry merry month of May and what could be merrier than reading the new issue of Good News Toronto?!!!

Hope you'll enjoy. This month is dededicated to moms and women who are everyday heroes living in our midsts.

Please visit Good News Toronto online at www.goodnewstoronto.ca or get in touch if you would like to receive your very own hard copy to have and to hold. It's free : )

For Seekers of Inspiration who are looking for something fun to do in Toronto on the afternoon of Sunday May 16, please join us for the Good News Toronto Nia Jam and Silent Auction.

You can find out more and register online at http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/community.shtml.

What a wonderful way to spend a day, being good to ourselves to benefit others around us as well. It's beautiful! Hope to see you there.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good News Toronto -- Our Everyday Heroes, April 2010

2010-04-12T01:08:00.002-04:00

Hello to All Who Are Looking For Inspiration:

Good News!!! The April 2010 issue of Good News Toronto is available in hard copy and on-line at www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

Hope you'll enjoy all the inspiration and motivation GNT offers with its feature stories of the everyday heroes who live among us in the GTA.

If you enjoy on-line reading, please click on the link:www.goodnewstoronto.ca, or paste it into your browser. If you prefer a hard copy, we can get one to you. Please let us know where you would like to receive your free copy. Contact me at commuteducation@lycos.com or contact the founding editor, Eva Karpati at info@goodnewstoronto.ca.

Pppssssst! If you notice the photo of the incredible kid sipping the smoothie along side the recipe, this brimming with pride Mummy would like to note, "That's my kid."

Enjoy every heaping helping of inspiration and motivation Good News Toronto has for you and for others around you.

Ardently,

Kathleen

"Start a ripple of giving right now" -- Judith Williamson

2010-03-30T00:32:00.006-04:00

Hello dear readers who are looking for inspiration.

After reading this week's lesson from my "Fifty-Two Lessons For Life" by Judith Williamson, I was so touched and inspired, I thought I would just have to share the excerpt, in hopes others will draw strength and inspiration from it too. For your reading delight, here it is:

In order to adapt ourselves to life’s many changes we must first learn to get along with others. Things can’t always go our way, benefit us the most, put us in the limelight, or only advance our careers. The “me-first” attitude does not serve a person well for very long. Looking to what we can get rather than to what we can give seems to be a national pastime. I suspect that individuals believe they are holding on to their identity when they refuse to compromise, however, in most of these daily circumstances they are the real losers.

Negotiation takes patience and expertise, and can be elevated to an art form. When done correctly, our long term success depends on it as much as we depend upon water to drink and air to breath. Dr. Hill reminds us multiple times that teamwork is a step on the ladder to success. An even higher step is the formation of a mastermind alliance. In order to reach the summit, you must let go of the desire to be right and autonomous every step of the way.

Being right means little unless you are truly happy. In pursuing success, it is wise to remember that a very real ingredient of success is the ability to get along with and to be liked by others. Without this component any success would be very hollow indeed.

The Universe rewards a giver. When you give without the expectation of return, you create a cycle that revolves around back to you. Ultimately, you are the recipient of the good you put out there. Start a ripple of giving right now, and watch out for the wave of goodness you will have soon created! Remember “what goes around comes around.” Make what comes around to you only good by starting the ripple that creates the wave! - Judith Williamson from Fifty-Two Lessons for Life

While all of the Fifty-Two Lessons are insightful, delightful, inspiring and meaningful to our everyday living, this one particularly struck a chord with me. I hope you like it too.

Take care all!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good news Toronto - Our Everyday Heroes, February 2010

2010-02-06T00:07:00.003-05:00

Hey everybody!!! Happy Heart Month and happy stories of more and more everyday heroes in the GTA. It's a heaping helping of inspiration. That's good for the heart!

Check it out: www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

It's so loaded with good stuff for your heart and soul, it does a body good! You'll feel inspired from head to toe and the world will be a better place one reader at a time.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Happy New Year and Happy Good News

2010-01-10T19:50:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers:

Welcome to the new year and welcome to the warmth of the January issue of Good News Toronto! As cold as it gets outside, there's always something in Good News Toronto to warm your heart through and through.

As I do love to say, "Which would you like first, the good news or the good? At Good News Toronto, that's all there is.

Enjoy the Good News at www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

If you would like a hard copy, please let me know. We'd love to make that happen.

Happy New Year!

Post with you again soon,

Kathleen

Just Because It Isn't Wrong Doesn't Make It Right

2009-12-14T00:17:00.005-05:00

Dear Blog Readers:

The title says it all.

In her book by this so-blatantly-obvious-but-often-overlooked title, Barbara Coloroso's compelling anecdotes serve as excellent reminders to us to engage in transactions with an aim to benefit all whom they affect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson brilliantly expressed the never ending circularity of benefits we can all enjoy when he said: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

"Just Because It Isnt Wrong Doesnt Make It Right" brings to life the values of human decency and respect for one another. Isn't it wonderful how merrily we can all roll along together when we endeavour to selfishly indulge in the blissful satisfaction of having acted with integrity for the greater good of all?

That reminds me of another title -- "What a Wonderful World." Oh yeah!

Ardently,

Kathleen

The Integrity Dividend

2009-12-12T19:37:00.004-05:00

Dear Blog Reader:

One of my all-time very favorite leadership skills development works is without a doubt "The Integrity Dividend" by Tony Simons.

It's about the exponential benefits of leadership founded on integrity. It certainly struck a chord with me when I read it. By systematically reviewing concepts of common decency and professionalism in leadership, Tony Simons brilliantly confirms what is so blatantly obvious about behavioural integrity that it is too often sadly overlooked with a detrimental effect that will percolate down through an entire organization. Essentially, if the people in your organization matter to you or if you care about your bottom line, there are some valuable lessons in this gem that will help you to become a leader of sound integrity.

I was reading some of the reviews on Amazon today by fellow admirers of The Integrity Dividend. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Integrity-Dividend-Leading-Power-Your/product-reviews/047018566X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Hope you'll enjoy the reviews, the book, and most ulitimately, the integrity dividends you and your organization will experience as a result of your interest and efforts to incorporate the leadership style Tony Simons professes.

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts

Toronto Observer Article November 26, 2009 - Local Scarborough Writer : )

2009-12-04T20:37:00.006-05:00

Hello Dear Blog Reader:

Kareen Awadalla, a writer from the Toronto Observer and a wonderful person to have met, found me on Facebook when she was looking for an arts and literature story for Scarborough.

I was so honoured that she wanted to share my story and I hope you don't mind that I'd like to share her article with you too.

http://www.torontoobserver.ca/2009/11/26/local-author-receives-first-book-publication/

For friends from Microskills, please note my gratitude to Nancy (as mentioned in the article to my delight) for alerting me to the chance to get published and also my gratitude to Katherine Young for daring me to try. The article mentions Nancy's name and I dearly wish it named Katherine as well. I didn't see the draft before it went to print. If I had, I would have asked to give credit specifically to Katherine Young as I doubt I would have tried if I had not had the good fortune of being dared by Katherine. Hope others among you are also finding happiness and success from Katherine's very positive influence.

Thank you again and again to Katherine and Nancy and to all of you from Microskills, Dale Carnegie, Toastmasters, Keep Any Promise, Napoleon Hill, Canadian Voices, Good News Toronto, and especially my family and friends, who have encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and to hope for something wonderful.

Thank you again and again to Lou Holtz for reminding us that we're in a good place when we have "Something to do, someone to love and something to hope for."

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good News Toronto - Our Everyday Heroes, December

2009-12-03T00:48:00.001-05:00

Hope you'll enjoy the December issue at: www.goodnewstoronto.ca.

If you would like to receive a hard copy, please let me know or contact Eva Karpati, publisher and editor, at info@goodnewstoronto.ca.

Patricia's class did the "Children's Heroes" page!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Luckyone

2009-11-14T02:37:00.005-05:00

“We should dig the well before we’re too thirsty.” That was the Chinese proverb Jack would spout to inspire his son Franky and his donkey, Luckyone, along with the other dedicated workers on his farm, to get on with it lickety-split when flavour-of-the-month notions flooded his head. Outfitted with an untamed imagination and a cream-of-the-crop view of himself, Jack had a uncanny ability to charm the people around him into getting his dirty work done like dinner. To say the least, his leadership was noteworthy.

Jack loved his farm. Above all he adored flaunting the fruits of the toil of labourers who marched to the beat of his drum. His mind tripped into high gear one day, over a conversation he had with a crony. Showing off the precision-straight furrows Franky and Luckyone had ploughed, Jack conceived an idea to streamline his operations.

To keep his farm running as tickety-boo as it did in his head, it tickled his fancy to sneak some new blood into the midst of his workers. He made up his mind to hire himself a high-falootin right-hand man. In fact, Jack envisioned modern farmers like himself all across the land each having their very own personally-selected right-hand man.

Sure, the change would be a kick in the gut to Franky who had grown up devoting his most cherished years to the farm, with the faithful help of Luckyone -- but times they were a changin’. “It is what it is,” he exclaimed as he bamboozled Franky and others into an upheaval in his attempt to usher in the new and shed the old. In his bewildered haze, Franky truly believed his father would soon flip-flop to a new flavour-of-the-month plan for the future. He imagined his dad would soon abandon this notional structure he was threatening to impose, without any regard to the mass confusion, and the crushing blow to morale it would inflict on the loyal crew.

“It’s going to be okay,” Franky said, thinking out loud and meaning to reassure himself and the others. “Soon my dad will introduce a new flavour of the month and we’ll get ready to dig that well instead.” With his relentless arrogance though, Jack, forged onward in oblivion to the devastation of his relationship with Franky and the others who had toiled with pride and integrity for the good of the farm. Jack audaciously introduced his new wonder, Charlie, who fit perfectly into the devilish image he had concocted in his brain. As Charlie was no stranger to dirty work, Jack knew he was just the right guy to step into it on the farm. In unison, Jack and Charlie chimed a banal, “We should dig the well before we’re too thirsty.”

Ominously, soon after Charlie’s arrival on the farm, Luckyone awoke in horror one day, to find herself in a dark and lonely place. She cried out heartbreakingly to get the attention of anyone who could come to her rescue. When Jack heard the commotion, he went running with Charlie right at his side, to see what it was all about. Reeking more of irony than she did of bilge, there was Luckyone looking up to them from the depth of a derelict well she and Franky had dutifully helped to dig for a gung ho flavour-of-the-month plan that Jack had sampled years earlier. He and Charlie had to think quickly of a way out of this pickle. In a blue funk, with total disregard for common sense and decency, Jack decided to just fill the neglected well with dirt. It would be too much trouble to think of a way to lift Luckyone out. She didn’t fit in well anyway with Jack's plan for his new streamlined operation.

Jack sent Franky out on a proverbial wild goose chase to distract him while Charlie recruited help to fill the pit, with Luckyone still at the bottom. Unbeknownst to the ad-hoc committee members gathered to help with the shovelling, it was Charlie who had deviously led Luckyone to the depression in the land and tipped her over the edge to hit rock bottom. The devil is always hidden in the details.

Some of the shovellers wondered fleetingly if there might be something more humane that could be done. All the same, regarding the farmer as a leader among them, most simply resigned to go with the flow. They didn’t all actually shovel of course. Some just stood by and watched the others abet in the atrocity. After all, Jack said he wanted the well filled. ”What can you do?” they mused. "It's his farm after all." To get the whole nasty deed over and done with as quickly as possible, some of them actually did grab their shovels to help Jack and Charlie to fling filth and muck on top of Luckyone.

At first Luckyone screeched in terror, unable to believe what was happening. The mob of shovellers had to be strong in their resolve to continue what they had started. With their collective conscience dangling by just a thread, some felt an annoying remorse about the obvious fate of the faithful old donkey. To their relief, Luckyone eventually calmed down as though in acquiescence to the morose destiny in store. Presumably, she was too exhausted to fight any longer. Not having to hear her pleas to their principles made it easier for the mob to continue without having to endure the annoyance of niggling pinches of guilt.

When Jack mustered the gall to peer down into the well that the mob was dutifully transforming into a grave, he was astounded. With each shovel load that the band of followers dumped onto her, the sanguine burro was doing something Jack could never have imagined was possible. There stood Luckyone, strong and calm, shaking off the dirt as it landed on her head and back. To the good fortune of all, Luckyone sensed the quiet support and encouragement from her friends on the farm as well as the unbearable longing that Franky would suffer if she were to succumb to the wicked plan and she was able to draw the strength and resolve she needed to fight for what was right. While the throng of adherents continued to shovel, Luckyone kept shaking it off and taking a step up. Soon, she stepped firmly up over the edge onto level ground and trotted off exultantly to find Franky.

Wouldn't you know the shovellers circled around the old well were in perfect formation for a congratulatory round of pats on the back for the achievement of having “helped out.” Jack and Charlie even gave each other a big ol’ high five for masterminding the rescue. Some among them struggled though, with the sense of evil and betrayal in which they had been willing to partake. Those made up their minds to join more honourable circles so that when what goes around comes around, they could be the better for it.

In the years that followed, Franky marveled at how different the outcome would have been for everyone if Luckyone had just laid down to accept the sinister fate the accomplices had drummed up. What finally happened with faithful old Luckyone was that she vengefully gnawed off her rightful pound of flesh from Jack and Charlie for trying to bury her alive, along with the hopes and dreams of Franky and the other workers. They learned a valuable lesson when the festering wounds from their bites got infected and they both became so sick they had to take an early off-ramp and retire early from the farm they had professed to love so much. It all goes to show -- "If you try to cover your, ehr uhm -- Luckyone, it will come back to bite you.

Luckyone was a donkey and did what she felt she had to do to strike a chord for justice. As good fortune has it, we don't all have to be asses and seek revenge. We can all decide though to be Luckyones and to take each challenge we face as an opportunity to shake it off an take a step up!

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts

So Much To Do!!!

2009-11-10T01:49:00.004-05:00

Hello dear Blog Readers:

According to the legendary and inspiring football coach, Lou Holtz, the definition of success and happiness goes more or less like “Something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.” By that measure, working moms and working dads and teachers and kids and neighbours and friends and grandparents and colleagues and just about everybody I know is a resounding success, basking in the glories of elatedness.

Some of us just mix things up a little thinking we’ve met with some degree of failure because we have lots to do, many people who rely and depend on us, and great dreams we have yet to achieve. Mr. Holtz’ quote can help us put things back in perspective when we remember how very much more fortunate we are to be in our situation than what we would be if we had nothing to do, nobody to care for, and no goals to strive for.

Here's to our success!!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Canadian Voices

2009-10-22T13:44:00.005-04:00

Book Launch November 10, 2009
from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
at the SUPERMARKET ART BAR
268 Augusta Ave, Toronto, ON M5T 2L9

Canadian Voices is a powerful and moving collection of prose and poetry, which stretches across the boundaries of age, skin color, language, ethnicity, and religion
to give voice to the lives and experiences of ordinary Canadians.

This vibrant, varied sampler of the Canadian literary scene captures timely personal and cultural challenges, and ultimately shares subtle insight and compassion written by a wide spectrum of stylistically and culturally diverse authors. Canadian Voices is more than simply an anthology — it is a celebration of wonderful writing by some of today's finest emerging Canadian writers.

This book is an ambitious, lasting, and meaningful work of literature that will not soon fade away. It is an exceptional reading experience to be enjoyed and savoured.

Participating Authors:

John Ambury
N. Patricia Armstrong
Elizabeth Barnes
Dahn Batchelor
Kathleen Betts
Yvonne Blackwood
Karim Bondrey
Alison E. Bruce
Altug Cakmakci
Mauro Cappa
Joan Chisholm
Christina Clapperton
Nancy Kay Clark
R.G. Condie
Juliet Davy
Jasmine D’Costa
Susan Desveaux
Sally Dillon
Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews
Graham Ducker
Mary Craig Gardner
Zita Hinson
Sherry Isaac
Manny Johal
Nancy Jonah
Fatmatta Kanu
Perparim Kapllani
David Kimel
Sharon Knauer
Bianca Lakoseljac
Karen Lam
John Maar
Maria Pia Marchelletta
Cassie McDaniel
Gemma Meharchand
Braz Menezes
Jatin Naik
Lisabeth Neuman
Judy Powell
Sylvia Price
Elana Rae
Maheen A. Rashdi
Pratap Reddy
Larry Rodness
Philomena Saldanha
Mel Sarnese
Andrew Scott
Marian Scott
Reva Stern
Sandor Stern
Steven H. Stern
Anna Stitski
Hailun Tang
Linda Torney
Edwin Vasan
Herb Ware
Karol Zelazny
Zohra Zoberi

Hope you'll be able to join us for the event!

Proudly promoting my cohorts and shamelessly self-promoting : )

Ardently,

Kathleen

The 333 Story by Bob Proctor from Chicken Soup for the Soul

2009-06-20T00:24:00.007-04:00

Hello Dear Readers led here from Good News Toronto Fundraisers or from other places of inspiration,

As we embark on our fundraising adventure, I can hardly think there can be more compelling story to help us grasp how very very realistic our target is.

The 333 Story by Bob Proctor, Chicken Soup for the Soul

I was doing a weekend seminar at the Deerhurst Lodge, north of Toronto. On Friday night a tornado swept through a town north of us called Barrie, killing dozens of people and doing millions of dollars worth of damage. Sunday night, as I was coming home, I stopped the car when I got to Barrie. I got out on the side of the highway and looked around. It was a mess. Everywhere I looked there were smashed houses and cars turned upside down.

That same night Bob Templeton was driving down the same highway. He stopped to look at the disaster just as I had, only his thoughts were different than my own. Bob was the vice-president of Telemedia Communications, which owns a string of radio stations in Ontario and Quebec. He thought there must be something we could do for these people with the radio stations they had.

The following night I was doing another seminar in Toronto. Bob Templeton and Bob Johnson, another vice-president from Telemedia, came in and stood in the back of the room. They shared their conviction that there had to be something they could do for the people in Barrie. After the seminar we went back to Bob's office. He was now committed to the idea of helping the people who had been caught in the tornado.

The following Friday he called all the executives at Telemedia into his office. At the top of a flip chart he wrote three 3s. He said to his executives "How would you like to raise 3 million dollars 3 days from now in just 3 hours and give the money to the people in Barrie?" There was nothing but silence in the room.

Finally someone said, "Templeton, you're crazy. There is no way we could do that." Bob said, "Wait a minute. I didn't ask you if we could or even if we should. I just asked you if you'd like to." They all said, "Sure we'd like to." He then drew a large T underneath the 333. On one side he wrote, "Why we can't." On the other side he wrote, "How we can." "I'm going to put a big X on the 'Why we can't side.' We're not going to spend any time on the ideas of why we can't. That's of no value. On the other wide we're going to write down every idea that we can come up with on how we can. We're not going to leave the room until we figure it out." There was silence again.

Finally, someone said, "We could do a radio show across Canada." Bob said, "That's a great idea," and wrote it down. Before he had it written, someone said, "You can't do a radio show across Canada. We don't have radio stations across Canada." That was a pretty valid objection. They only had stations in Ontario and Quebec. Templeton replied, "That's why we can. That stays." But this was a real strong objection because radio stations are not very compatible. They usually don't work together. They are very cutthroat. They fight each other. To get them to work together would be virtually impossible according to the standard way of thinking.

All of a sudden someone said, "You could get Harvey Kirk and Lloyd Robertson, the biggest names in Canadian broadcasting, to anchor the show." (That would be like getting Tom Brokaw and Sam Donaldson to anchor the show. They are anchors on national TV. They are not going to go on radio.) At that point, it was absolutely amazing how fast and furious the creative ideas began to flow.

That was on a Friday. The following Tuesday they had a radiothon. They had fifty radio stations all across the country that agreed to broadcast it. It didn't matter who got the credit as long as the people in Barrie got the money. Harvey Kirk and Lloyd Robertson anchored the show and they succeeded in raising three million dollars in three hours within three business days!
Hope you enjoyed Bob's story. It reminds me: That's why we can raise $60,000 to keep Good News Toronto alive and well and inspiring all of us and our neighbours too. We'll have our own 60K in 60 Days Story to tell by the end of August. Really, if you go by the math, I suppose we have even more than 60 days, but 60K in Seventy some days doesn't have the same zeal and appeal. Let's roll.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Extra Extra Read All About Good News Toronto On-Line for June 2009

2009-06-07T00:02:00.003-04:00

Extra Extra Read All About It! The June issue of Good News Toronto is ready for reading. Good News Toronto (GNT) is a not-for-profit newspaper distributed on the first Tuesday of the month in the TTC and throughout the GTA. As the Editor, Eva Karpati tells us, Good News Toronto celebrates the multitude of inspirational people who live in Toronto, with the goal of inspiring each other and motivating all of us to continue to make this city rich in everyday heroes.”

GNT is a monthly gazette of all good news and only good news and comes to you completely free of charge. Talk about good news! Because we are all concerned about the environment and about spreading the good news as far and wide as we can, GNT is vamping up its on-line presence. Please check it out at http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/. Keep an eye out too for the next issue in September, when the site will be all the more enhanced. Any feedback you can offer is greatly appreciated.

If you do like to have a traditional hard copy of the paper to sit and read with your coffee, or while you’re doing whatever you do, wherever you read the paper, you might prefer to subscribe to ensure you always get your copy every month for the rest of the year. It costs only $18.00 per year (to cover delivery cost of postage.) You can get more details by visiting the site or writing to info@goodnewstoronto.ca ,or calling 416-661-2556.

We hope you’ll enjoy the good news. When you savour every delightful morsel of inspiration to be gleaned from the pages of GNT, you'll feel empowered to handle all the news that comes your way for this day, any day, and everyday. Last but not least, if you have good news you would like to share, please report it to Good News Toronto at: info@goodnewstoronto.ca. Sharing your “good news” of an everyday hero among us will inspire others to do more good for the world around them as well and gladness will come full circle. Happy Reading!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Talk about good news!

2009-04-12T11:11:00.003-04:00

Extra Extra Read All About It! The April issue of Good News Toronto is ready for reading. This monthly gazette is all good news and only good news and comes to you completely free of charge. Talk about good news!

Good News Toronto (GNT) is a not-for-profit newspaper distributed on the first Tuesday of the month in the TTC and throughout the GTA. As the Editor, Eva Karpati tells us, Good News Toronto celebrates the multitude of inspirational people who live in Toronto, with the goal of inspiring each other and motivating all of us to continue to make this city rich in everyday heroes.”

Because we are all concerned about the environment and about spreading the good news as far and wide as we can, you can check out the latest issue on-line. Please visit http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/. If you do like to have a traditional hard copy of the paper to sit and read with your coffee, or while you’re doing whatever you do, wherever you read the paper, you might prefer to subscribe to ensure you always get your copy every month for the rest of the year. It costs only $18.00 per year (to cover delivery cost of postage.)

For more information, you can visit the site or write to info@goodnewstoronto.ca or call 416-661-2556. We hope you’ll enjoy the good news. When you savour every delightful morsel of inspiration to be gleaned from the pages of GNT, you'll feel empowered to handle all the news that comes your way for this day, any day, and everyday.

Last but not least, if you have good news you would like to share, please report it to Good News Toronto at: info@goodnewstoronto.ca. Sharing your “good news” of an everyday hero among us will inspire others to do more good for the world around them as well and gladness will come full circle.

Happy Reading!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Over-The-Top -- It's Not Bragging. It's Inspiring.

2009-01-15T13:12:00.006-05:00

Welcome Dear Readers led here from Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Dale Carnegie, Microskills, and other places of inspiration:

I'm inviting everyone to write in the most over-the-top thing that has happened to you or to someone you know. Even better, write about the most over-the-top thing you dream of doing. We can all aim together to inspire and motivate each other to strike the abundance we deserve. It's gotta feel better to be over-the-top than to be toned down. Let's all step out of our comfort zones together and feel how it feels. It will be exhilarating. My husband called me over-the-top one time. I need to thank him for setting a high standard to live up to when he laid down that challenge. One last word of caution for us all to share. Be careful not to protect yourself and others from the opportunity to do greater things!

While I was doing the dishes with my Mum one day after a family dinner, she said she had one recommendation for this blog she dutifully reads from time to time. Mum thought I should tone it down a bit. With the greatest of intention to offer helpful advice, Mum said, "It's a little hard to read much of it for too long." We talked about it for a bit, trying to pinpoint what exactly she was recommending, while treading carefully to avoid hurting any feelings. "Maybe it's a little too optimistic could be what you mean" I offered, or maybe even "A little Pollyanna’ish?" "No," we decided that was not quite it and we got sidetracked before we finished our discussion.

I think I figured it out as I thought about it more afterward. I think we were looking for "over-the-top." Maybe it's all a little too over-the-top. Thinking more about my mother's advice, I agreed that maybe I should tone it down a bit to strike a balance that might make it a little easier to read more of it. That was right before the thought burst to mind that what would be even better than toning it down a bit would be taking it up a notch.

There’s plenty going on out there in the world to tone it down and strike a balance so that we can maintain our middle-of-the-packth place or maybe even finish in also-ranth. Mum’s caution to me serves as a great example of the well-intended advice that we give as parents to protect our children from doing something where there is a risk of getting hurt or of being criticized. Those of us who are lucky enough to have parents who say and do things to protect us are secure in the sense that our mothers and fathers care so much about us they cannot bear to see or feel our hurt.

Fortunately, from this sense of security, we can decide to draw the strength of self-confidence. We can listen to what our parents say and do to help us feel secure and loved and we can watch what they and others who influence us positively do to set a good example for us to follow, at any age, to develop the confidence we need to lead the way and then invite others from the middle of the pack to join us as we go over the top. Come to think of it, my mother’s a little over-the–top.

Thank you Mum for your made-with-love words of caution that give me a sense of security and thank you too for showing me how to stay grounded while going over the top! With a healthy sense of security bestowed upon us with love from our parents, and the confidence we need to take the risk to step out of our comfort zone in the middle of the pack, we can aim for and achieve success to the nth degree and strike abundance instead of striking the status quo balance we’ve worked so hard to maintain for as long we have.

In the human race, keeping up with the middle of the pack has its merit. Just imagine though how you can rejoice and be glad in it when you make your breakaway or make your splash. Instead of striking a balance, we could strive, along side our parents and our children, to strike abundance. With all the toning it down that's already going on out there, we're well equipped to keep the balance we've all been living and to keep ourselves at the same level or lower, without me or anybody else jumping onto that band wagon. To strike abundance, to make our dreams come true, exactly what we need to do is to take it up a notch from where we are toward where we want to be.

Over The Top To You,

Kathleen

Keep Any Promise in 2009

2009-01-08T01:06:00.001-05:00

Dear Readers,

What would it feel like to keep all your new year's resolutions, and every promise you make? Yes—fantastic! Imagine how it would feel. Create a mental picture of yourself living a life where you are doing what you want most for yourself and for others. While many of us have been living a life of broken promises—to ourselves, our families, the world— the good news is we can change. At any age, the cost of not keeping our promises is staggering: in failed relationships, stalled careers, lack of connection, and poor physical and mental health. Are you living life to its fullest every day, or are you ambling through life to see what happens?

I recently came across a wonderful resource by author and inspirational speaker Karim H. Ismail called Keep Any Promise: a blueprint for designing your future. I found the material to be both inspiring and very practical! With the wonderful blueprint this book offers, I know this book can help us find our way to financial abundance, great health, wonderful relationships, a strong spiritual connection, and a positive world impact. How would you like a step-by-step blueprint to keeping your promises—and building and achieving the future of your dreams?

Karim shares the inspiring stories of twelve “ordinary” people who do extraordinary things. You will learn how they embrace their fears, change their thinking, reach for the seemingly-impossible, achieve great goals, and keep their promises. These dramatic stories will help you learn how to build and transform your own unique life. I hope you will click here: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=853142 to learn more and to take the first step along the path from where you are, to where you want to be. One small click for you here --one giant leap toward reaching your true potential.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Psst! The e-book is only $24.95. You could be on your way for that little, that soon. The 3 CD audio set, or instant download audiobook are also very affordable, for those of you who would like to take advantage of your commute time to learn the stories of the extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary people. There is also the traditional hardcover book option for those of you who would like to hold it in your own hands and flip back and forth through your pages and highlight as you go along. Best of all, the 120 page Keep Any Promise Life Blueprint workbook, a $149 value, is a free download once you purchase the book in any format.

Teach Your Parents Well

2008-12-20T07:49:00.014-05:00

Dear Readers,

We learn so much from our children. What I have had the good fortune to learn is that my children give me strength and confidence I didn't know I had. I have realized over the years and through experience that I can do things I didn't think I could, simply because I need to for my children. Through their innocence, needs and dependence on parents or others who influence them, our children help us realize we can do things, that without them we would be unable to do.

We can be masters at manufacturing in our minds, a barrage of excuses to ourselves to rationalize our deficiencies. We think we are too fearful, too uneducated, too weak, too shy, too technically challenged, etc... etc... etc... When our children need our help, we can find ourselves effortlessly doing what we had supposed we were incapable of for whatever excuse we had fabricated to keep us from ever even trying. We can come to this realization through routine interactions.

From as far back as I can recall, jumping off that dock into Chandos Lake was one of the most absolutely gleeful activities throughout my childhood and still is to today. With my brother, Sean, and my cousins, Margaret and Karen, I could spend hours every day of the blessed time we spent together at Chandos, jumping off the dock, splashing into the lake and swimming around to the ladder to do it all over again and again and again. I just had to be sure to never let my feet touch the sandy bottom of the lake in the shallows as I made my way around to the ladder. That would have been too scary. When, heaven forbid, I did accidentally touch that murkiness, I would shudder in horror and let out a screech of terror, fearing that whatever was lurking in the soft soggy sand would surely swallow my vulnerable appendage. I carried the fear with me into adulthood. It was no trouble at all for me to uphold my belief, until something changed my perspective that is...

My epiphany occurred when I was at my grandmother's cottage on Chandos Lake. In all the years I had been jumping off my grandmother's dock into Chandos Lake I had painstakingly ensured my feet did not touch the bottom of the lake. With parenthood comes challenges. To coax my toddler to gleefully jump off the dock, I quickly realized it would be a tricky endeavour, unless I could stand on my own two feet to be there for my child. When children were depending on me to be there for them while they were learning to jump off the dock and make their own splash into the lake, it became more and more difficult to keep my own feet safe from the danger that was lurking in the murky bottom. It was difficult to tread water and dog paddle while coaxing my little treasures that there was "nothing" to be afraid of. "Just jump in," I would say. "I'll be here to catch you."

What I would catch occasionally was myself stoically asserting, "There's nothing to be afraid of," while I was madly treading away to keep my feet up and safe from whatever it was I was so afraid of. When our own children need us to be able to do something that had previously seemed impossible, we find we suddenly are quite capable. I just had to finally put my foot down. That is, I just put both feet down on the bottom with a quick little grimace and decided if others had been able to touch down without losing an appendage, I could too.

The benefits were manifold to say the least, although I didn’t immediately realize the magnitude of the leap forward I made with one small step down. Although the lake bottom was a little squishier than I would have liked it to have been, the secure foothold to step up to my responsibilities was quite firm. I am so grateful to my children for helping me plant my feet firmly on the ground to discover with full confidence that the benefits outweigh the risk of harm.

The gift of confidence we receive through parenthood is ours to give back and instill in our own children so that they too can have their feet planted firmly on the ground to stand tall and march proudly from where they are to where they want to be. As children teach their parents well, we have the glory of teaching our children well. It’s beautiful.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good News Toronto -- Good News Everywhere

2008-12-04T15:26:00.009-05:00

Hello Dear Readers,

Just a quick note today to remind all that the December edition of Good News Toronto came out on December 2. You can see it on-line at http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/.

There are some awesome articles and inspiring stories that you don't want to miss. When you savour every delightful morsel of inspiration to be gleaned from its pages, you'll feel empowered to handle all the news that comes your way for this day and any day.

In reality, there is a lot of great news and good stuff happening in our city and in our lives every day. Sometimes we just have to pay more attention to it to appreciate it and to resist the temptation to get bogged down in the negativity, that given its due is just as much in our reality.

The editor of Good News Toronto, Eva Karpati, aims to level the lopsided playing field where all forms of media meet in a an all out competition of one-up-manship for the most sensationalistic story they can present. While it's true that the gory details of the sensationalism are based mostly in fact, we can choose to simply accept that there are some bad things happening while we focus our attention on the glory of the good things that are also happening. Then we can engage in the one-up-manship of recounting a tale of "something even more wonderful" that happened or even better, we can actually contribute our efforts on making something even more wonderful happen for ourselves or for others.

Good News Toronto includes a regular feature called Random Acts of Kindness. When you have the good fortune to witness such an act, please do report it to info@goodnewstoronto.ca, and share the exhiliration with others who would love to know about it.

The October issue of Good News Toronto featured an article on a charitable organization called Basketeers. Please visit their website to learn more about the great things they are doing: http://www.basketeers.ca/region_basketeers.php. The December issue of Good News Toronto includes a short update to applaud the organization on their achievement of providing 912 baskets overflowing with useful items for women leaving shelters to set up on their own. Wow!!! When you think about it, there really are so many great people out there doing great things. When you read about it in Good News Toronto, you want to become a part of it and share in the good will toward others and the sense of accomplishment and gratification you get from helping others. One of my favorite inspiring thoughts comes from the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in his quote: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

When I Googled a few words to find the exact wording of that quote, I stumbled on this site: http://www.helpothers.org/index.php. When something looks too good to be true, it's worth looking at. Hope you'll enjoy the inspiration. There's so much good stuff, it's overwhelming. Share the good news. Let us all know about something even better that happened to you or to someone you know or someone you know of. The playing field is levelling. Game on!!!

Ardently,

Kathleen

Formula for Self Confidence Simplified for Early Learners

2008-12-02T16:06:00.003-05:00

Welcome again Dear Readers led here from Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Dale Carnegie, Microskills, and other places of inspiration:

As I have had the good fortune of many verbal requests, I am posting this version of the formula again today for easy retrieval. Hope this is helpful...

As promised in the guest column you may have read in the November 21 edition of the e-zine, Napoleon Hill, Yesterday and Today, the "Simplified Formula for Self-Confidence for Early Learners" follows immediately below.

“Simplified” Confidence Formula for Children (by Kathleen Betts, October 2008)
Adapted from the Formula for Self–Confidence in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, 1937

1. I promise to practice doing things that will help me to get better at doing the special things I want to do most in my life.

2. I can close my eyes and make a picture that I can see clearly in my imagination, of myself doing the special things I want to do most.

3. Each morning when I wake up and each night before I sleep, I will say out loud “I know I can” while I think about what I want most to do and to have.

4. I have written down the words and drawn a picture of myself, to show clearly what I want to do most and what I want to have most.

5. I know that being the person I want to be and having what I want most, will last a long time if I am sure to always be honest and fair with others.

Others will be fair to me and helpful to me, because I am fair and helpful to others.

Others will believe in me, because I will believe in others and in myself.

I will read this page out loud every day until I can remember it and I will keep repeating it out loud every day so that I get ideas and choose to do things that will help me to achieve what I want most so that I can be the person I made in the pictures on paper and in my imagination.

Name: _____________________ Signature: __________________________

The “Simplified” Children’s Formula for Self-Confidence by Kathleen Betts has been adapted from Napoleon Hill’s Formula for Self Confidence with the consent and approval of the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

Kids may like to customize the formula even more to name a particular goal they are working toward instead of saying generics like "thing(s) I want most" and "special thing(s)." I hope this is a helpful tool to parents who are working together with their children to optimize potential and opportunity.

For more information on the work of Napoleon Hill, please visit the website at http://www.naphill.org/

If you are not already a subscriber to the inspirational weekly e-zine, Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, please click on this link if you are interested: http://mailer.napoleon-hill-news.com/common/SignMeUp.html?customerId=3.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Quotable Quotes for Inspiration

2008-11-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

I often find myself trying to recall a particular quote that has struck a chord with me and from which I have drawn inspiration. I hope you can find some strength and motivation too from the following montage of finely spoken and written words, which I felt were just too good to pass up.

"When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent you are clear."
Janet Attwood

"Whether you think you can or can't, you're right."
Henry Ford

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
William Churchhill

"Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
The Buddha

"The real person you are is revealed in the moments when you're certain no other person is watching. When no one is watching, you are driven by what you expect of yourself."
Ralph S. Marston, Jr.

"You can be as you choose to be. It's an act of discipline sometimes, but it can be done."
Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard

"You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you."
Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Who you are speaks so loudly, I can't hear a word you're saying."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true of false. It comes to be dominating thought in one's mind."
Robert Collier

"Begin to be now what you will be hereafter."
Saint Jerome

"We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us."
Virginia Satir

"Whether it's praise, love, criticism, money, time, space, power, punishment, sorrow, laughter, care, pain, or pleasure... the more you give, the more you will receive."
Mike Dooley

"Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!"
Mike Dooley

"Tell the World what you intend to do; but first show it."
Napoleon Hill

"Growth is not steady, forward, upward progression. It is instead a switchback trail; three steps forward, two back, one around the bushes, and a few simply standing, before another forward leap."
Dorothy Corkville Briggs

"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, make them."
George Bernard Shaw

"The two things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision."
Robyn Davidson

"The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforseen incidents, meetings and material assistance will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help."
Napoleon Hill

"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."
Muhammad Ali

"You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime."
Dale Carnegie

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, Something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my "life".
Fr. Alfred D'Souza

"Take time to accept responsibility. Your life is exactly that - It's your life. It is created by you. You are constantly making choices, constantly creating new experiences. And although we can be affected by circumstances which can seem to be completely out of our control. Essentially, we decide the direction in which we walk."
Nicolas Watkins

"The world is not about you. It is about the impact you have on others. The sooner you learn this lesson, the quicker success will come."
Neil Thornton

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle

"Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say 'Why not?' "
George Bernard Shaw

"It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about."
Dale Carnegie

"Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down."
Charles F. Kettering

"The key to being joyful is being grateful."
Jackie Pflug

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
Dale Carnegie

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising, which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires...courage.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more."
Og Mandino

"You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins."
Jim Stovall

"When you understand, that your disappointment in another's behavior or choices always stems from their immaturity, or yours, rather than their unkindness, or yours, it becomes much harder not to keep skipping through life, giddy with joy, smelling the flowers. Moreover, when you understand that with enough maturity on your end you can always find peace in all of your relationships, it becomes much harder not to run down the street kissing everyone you meet on both cheeks."
Mike Dooley

"Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow."
Norman Vincent Peale

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one."
Russell Lynes

"It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.' "
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Here's how to view every decision you've ever made: It was right. Here's how to view every path you've ever chosen: It was right. Here's how to view every trend, friend, and dance you've ever moved with: They were right. And here's how to view the fact that you even exist at all: "I" was totally on fire."
Mike Dooley

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, head and hands."
Robert M. Pirsig

"Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow."
Thornton Wilder

"I am who I am today, where I am today, because this was my choice and it has served me well. However, it no longer serves me, my choices have changed, and I give thanks for the amazing changes that now sweep through my amazing life."
Mike Dooley

"To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully." Tryon Edwards

"Success, happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment-- the most priceless of human treasures--are available to all among us, without exception, who make things happen--who make *good* things happen--in the world around them."
Joe Klock

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
Dale Carnegie

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
Helen Keller

"A valuable lesson I've learned from making music is to never let anyone intimidate me. Every student, celebrity, CEO and math teacher in the world has experienced love, loneliness, fear and embarrassment at some point. To understand this is to level a sometimes very lopsided playing field."
Anna Nalick

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Childhood is that state which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity."
Kathy Williams

We are so fortunate to have some among us who have the gift of eloquence and are able to put into fine words the thoughts and notions that can lead us to success, happiness, fulfillment and action for the better good of all.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Think and Grow Confident!!!

2008-11-24T09:46:00.000-05:00

Hello Dear Readers,

I have a great news story to share. It's the most over-the-top thing that's happened to me in the last little while and maybe ever, except for the births of PB, GB, RB and DB. On November 21, 2008, my first ever published article was born!! With great pride and a sense of accomplishment and more drive than ever before to set and reach for loftier goals, I've copied the article herein from the prestigious e-zine, Napoleon Hill - Yesterday and Today Issue 96 November 21, 2008. For those of you who are interested in subscribing to the Napoleon Hill Foundation's distinguished weekly inspirational e-zine, voila the link: http://mailer.napoleon-hill-news.com/common/SignMeUp.html?customerId=3. I can hardly express how thankful I am to Judith Williamson, Director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, for her encouragement and inspiration and for her kind invitation to submit my article to be included in the guest column. Thank you thank you thank you thank you to all of you too who take your precious time to read what I write with the hope of helping. Thank you too to Katherine Young from Microskills (www.microskills.ca) in Toronto for laying down a challenge and to Karim Ismail at Keep Any Promise (http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=853142) as well as Darrell, Dave, Michelle, Erin and Bill at Dale Carnegie for helping me set and achieve goals. Thank you always to PB, GB, RB & DB and to Mike and Mum and all my family for encouragement and to all my friends and colleagues at Microskills and Dale Carnegie and other places of inspiration for the positive influence you have provided.

Here's what I had to say:

Think and Grow Confident!

Many experts in the field of personal development profess that we are all born with the confidence we need to go ahead and make a splash, without worrying ourselves about getting wet. Kathy Williams insightfully captures this observable phenomenon in her quote, "Childhood is that state which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity." Somewhere along the line, through the mostly well-intended nurturing of parents and other influences, as children we learn to quell our confidence and enthusiasm in order to keep ourselves safe from harm as well as criticism. Paradoxically, the inherent danger of learning to save ourselves from these hazards is that we may become so risk-averse that we don't see the opportunities to make a splash as easily as we would have been able to see them through the bright eyes of a child. Somewhere along the line, we need to find the right formula to optimize our potential to do as much good as we can for ourselves and for others in the short time we share together here in our living years. Were it only that we could equip ourselves as children with a tool to help us strike that balance as early as possible.

Confidence has a most significant impact in determining potential for exceptional achievement over mediocrity. In pondering the significant benefits of developing and maintaining self-confidence, from early on, a familiar jingle for a popular hygiene product called Sure, comes to mind. To that familiar tune, we can wonder, are our children "confident, confident, (or) dry and secure?" We learn well through life’s usual trials and triumphs to subdue our confidence sufficiently to safely reach the milestone of a mid-life crisis apparently unharmed, but too often without any exceptional accomplishments. Safely shrouded in a sense of near emptiness, droves of us are propelled to the self-help section at a big box book store where we meet an overwhelming array of resources to choose from in that fragile state. The words of my bright-eyed five-year-old not yet quite having quashed his confidence and enthusiasm at that tender age, loom large as I can hear him as clearly as if he were right now blurting out as he does from time to time, “Now that’s gotta hurt!” with a subtle and striking emphasis on “gotta.” In my own experience, which I suppose to be far from unique, my selection from the shelf was Napoleon Hill’s all time best seller in the self-development field, Think and Grow Rich, to help me navigate the path from where I wanted to scream, “I quit!” to where I have now regained sufficient confidence to actually look for a puddle of water in which I can make a splash.

For many of us who have broadened our horizons either in the wake of a crisis, or for any good reason have awakened ourselves to a new commitment to succeed, as adults we discovered the “Formula for Self-Confidence” while reading the book and endeavoring to partake of the benefits available to us through Napoleon Hill’s life’s work dedicated to helping the masses find their way to the riches of self-fulfillment. Having learned throughout our lives to navigate clear of the muddied waters through two, three or four and some decades of experience, the “Formula” helps us overcome trepidation and embrace a challenge to regain the confidence that was rightfully ours from birth. Being one of the many who shares in this good fortune, I wished dearly I had discovered the formula much earlier in life.

As prescribed by Napoleon Hill himself, I found myself reciting the formula out loud once a day, sometimes in the presence of my own four precious children, aged 9, 7, 5 and 3. I noticed to my delight, that my children were more than receptive to reciting the formula along with me. One thing I have been unfalteringly confident of throughout parenthood is that I am the luckiest mother ever in the whole wide world and it is my sincere hope that all other parents out there experience the same sentiment. As has been the case of caring parents across cultures for generations through the annals, it is second nature to us to do our best to steer our children clear of harm and criticism, and of course to stay out of puddles. Ideally though, to achieve the utmost in keeping our children safe from all harm, including that of potentially passing up an opportunity, we need to preserve their confidence by equipping them with the sure footing they need to know when and how to get closer to the edge, or nearer to the fire, or to get their feet wet, even if it does make their parents gasp and chastise in fear of our precious little ones being hurt.

While parents cannot and probably should not eliminate the gasping and well-intended chastising that emanate from us almost unwittingly in our conviction to keep our children safe, we can make a conscious effort to also equip them from an early age, with the benefits of Napoleon Hill's recommendation for building self-confidence. With great optimism, imagining the exponential potential gains my children might enjoy if confidence was fostered from the beginning to grow with them, I thought they might derive even more benefit if the language was adapted somewhat to be more age-appropriate for bright-eyed, open-minded, happy-go-lucky, splash-through-the-puddles, early-years learning. With my own renewed confidence and with much gratitude and respect to Napoleon Hill and the Napoleon Hill Foundation, I introduced the following adapted version. There is also a more simplified version intended for very early learners, available on my blog site at www.commuteducation.blogspot.com.

I hope the Formula for Self-Confidence Adapted for Children will be a helpful tool to my own children and to other parents and children who are aiming to strike a balance while learning the lessons of life together, striving for the riches of fulfillment and reaching for our lofty goals to make dreams of a world as good as it can be come true for all of us. When you think about it, what’s the worst that can happen when you take the risk of jumping in a puddle? When we and our children get our feet wet, we can hope and plan to leave a print or a trail of footsteps we would be proud to have others follow. Equipped with knowledge and the confidence to strike a balance, we are better prepared to also think and grow confident about what is the best that can happen.

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts

N.B. The adapted versions of the Formula for Self-Confidence are entered on this blog site under separate posts. I hope you will find them useful tools to help instill and foster self-confidence in children you know.

Please do share your success story with us. It's not bragging when you let us know about something good that happened. It's inspiring. We all love and benefit from a good news story.

“Simplified” Confidence Formula for Early Learners

2008-11-21T11:24:00.001-05:00

Welcome Dear Readers led here from Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Dale Carnegie, Microskills, and other places of inspiration:

As promised in the guest column you may have read in the November 21 edition of the e-zine, Napoleon Hill, Yesterday and Today, the "Simplified Formula for Self-Confidence for Early Learners" follows immediately below.

“Simplified” Confidence Formula for Children (by Kathleen Betts, October 2008)
Adapted from the Formula for Self–Confidence in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, 1937

1. I promise to practice doing things that will help me to get better at doing the special things I want to do most in my life.

2. I can close my eyes and make a picture that I can see clearly in my imagination, of myself doing the special things I want to do most.

3. Each morning when I wake up and each night before I sleep, I will say out loud “I know I can” while I think about what I want most to do and to have.

4. I have written down the words and drawn a picture of myself, to show clearly what I want to do most and what I want to have most.

5. I know that being the person I want to be and having what I want most, will last a long time if I am sure to always be honest and fair with others. Others will be fair to me and helpful to me, because I am fair and helpful to others. Others will believe in me, because I will believe in others and in myself.

I will read this page out loud every day until I can remember it and I will keep repeating it out loud every day so that I get ideas and choose to do things that will help me to achieve what I want most so that I can be the person I made in the pictures on paper and in my imagination.

Name: _____________________ Signature: __________________________

The “Simplified” Children’s Formula for Self-Confidence by Kathleen Betts has been adapted from Napoleon Hill’s Formula for Self Confidence with the consent and approval of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. For more information on the work of Napoleon Hill, please visit the website at http://www.naphill.org/

I hope this is a helpful tool to parents who are working together with their children to optimize potential and opportunity. Kids may like to customize the formula even more to name a particular goal they are working toward instead of saying generics like "thing(s) I want most" and "special thing(s)."

If you are not already a subscriber to the inspirational weekly e-zine, Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, please click on this link if you are interested: http://mailer.napoleon-hill-news.com/common/SignMeUp.html?customerId=3.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Confidence Formula for Children (aged 9 - 14)

2008-11-21T11:17:00.001-05:00

Welcome Dear Readers led here from Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Dale Carnegie, Microskills, and other places of inspiration:

As it appeared in the guest column you may have read in the November 21 edition of the e-zine, Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, the formula for self-confidence adapted for children, follows immediately below.

Confidence Formula for Children (by Kathleen Betts, November 2008)

Adapted from the "Formula for Self–Confidence" from
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, 1937

1. I know I am able to do the special things I want to do most in my life. I choose to practice doing things that will help me get better at doing what I want to do most. I promise to start now and to keep practicing whenever I can.

2. I know that the things I think about most will become real things in my life. I will spend 10 minutes every day just thinking about what I want to do most and what I want to be. I will close my eyes and make a clear picture in my imagination, of myself doing the special thing I want to do most.

3. I can feel more confident by telling myself over and over that I believe in myself and that I know I can, so that the things I want most to have and to do will become real things in my life. Each morning when I wake up and each night before I sleep, I will say out loud “I know I can” while I think about what I want most to do and to have.

4. I have written down the words and drawn a picture, telling and showing exactly what I want to do most and what I want to have most. I will always keep trying until what I want to have and to be become real things in my life.

5. I know that being and having what I want most, will only last a long time if I am sure to always be honest and fair with others. I will always tell the truth and I will always do things that will be helpful to others too, when I am working to get the things that I want. I will always think about how what I do will matter to and will affect others, before I do it. That way I will be like a magnet for good things and good people who will help me find ways to do what I want to do most. Others are fair to me and helpful to me, because I am fair and helpful to others. I will always do my best to be caring, content, satisfied, giving and helpful toward others because I know that others will be good to me and that I will have success, when I think good things about others and myself, when I do good things for others and myself, and when I am loving toward others and myself. Others will believe in me, because I will believe in others and in myself.

I will sign my name to this formula, I will read it out loud every day until I can remember it and I will keep repeating it to myself out loud every day so that I get ideas and choose to do things that will help me to achieve what I want most, so that I can be the person I made in the pictures on paper and in my imagination.

Name: _____________________ Signature: __________________________

The Children’s Formula for Self-Confidence by Kathleen Betts has been adapted from Napoleon Hill’s Formula for Self Confidence with the consent and approval of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. For more information on the work of Napoleon Hill, please visit the website at http://www.naphill.org/

I hope this is a helpful tool to parents who are working together with their children to optimize potential and opportunity. Kids may like to customize the formula even more to name a particular goal they are working toward instead of saying generics like "thing(s) I want most" and "special thing(s)."

If you are not already a subscriber to the inspirational weekly e-zine, Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, please click on this link if you are interested: http://mailer.napoleon-hill-news.com/common/SignMeUp.html?customerId=3.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Keep Any Promise!

2008-11-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

What would it feel like to keep all your new year's resolutions, and every promise you make? Yes—fantastic! Imagine how it would feel. Create a mental picture of yourself living a life where you are doing what you want most for yourself and for others.

While many of us have been living a life of broken promises—to ourselves, our families, the world— the good news is we can change. At any age, the cost of not keeping our promises is staggering: in failed relationships, stalled careers, lack of connection, and poor physical and mental health. Are you living life to its fullest every day, or are you ambling through life to see what happens?

I recently came across a wonderful resource by author and inspirational speaker Karim H. Ismail called Keep Any Promise: a blueprint for designing your future. I found the material to be both inspiring and very practical! With the wonderful blueprint this book offers, I know this book can help us find our way to financial abundance, great health, wonderful relationships, a strong spiritual connection, and a positive world impact. How would you like a step-by-step blueprint to keeping your promises—and building and achieving the future of your dreams?

Karim shares the inspiring stories of twelve “ordinary” people who do extraordinary things. You will learn how they embrace their fears, change their thinking, reach for the seemingly-impossible, achieve great goals, and keep their promises. These dramatic stories will help you learn how to build and transform your own unique life. I hope you will click here: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=853142 to learn more and to take the first step along the path from where you are, to where you want to be. One small click for you here --one giant leap toward reaching your true potential.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Psst! The e-book is only $24.95. You could be on your way for that little, that soon. The 3 CD audio set, or instant download audiobook are also very affordable, for those of you who would like to take advantage of your commute time to learn the stories of the extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary people. There is also the traditional hardcover book option for those of you who would like to hold it in your own hands and flip back and forth through your pages and highlight as you go along. Best of all, the 120 page Keep Any Promise Life Blueprint workbook, a $149 value, is a free download once you purchase the book in any format.

Striking Abundance -- Over-The-Top O' The Mornin To You!

2008-11-19T14:25:00.000-05:00

Welcome Dear Readers led here from Napoleon Hill Yesterday and Today, Dale Carnegie, Microskills, and other places of inspiration:

While I was doing the dishes with my Mum the other day after a family dinner, she said she had one recommendation for this blog she dutifully reads from time to time. Mum thought I should tone it down a bit. That gave me a great idea. I think I should take it up a notch. With the good intention to offer helpful advice, Mum said, "It's a little hard to read much of it for too long." We talked about it for a bit, trying to pinpoint what exactly she was recommending, while surely treading carefully to avoid hurting any feelings. "Maybe it's a little too optimistic?" I offered, or maybe even "A little Pollyanna’ish?" "No," we decided that was not quite it and we got sidetracked before we finished our discussion.

I think I figured it out as I thought about it more afterward. I think we were looking for "over-the-top." Maybe it's all a little too over-the-top. Thinking more about my mother's advice, I agreed that maybe I should tone it down a bit to strike a balance that might make it a little easier to read more of it. That was right before the thought burst to mind that what would be even better than toning it down a bit would be taking it up a notch.

There’s plenty going on out there in the world to tone it down and strike a balance so that we can maintain our middle-of-the-packth place or maybe even finish in also-ranth. Mum’s caution to me serves as a great example of the well-intended advice that we give as parents to protect our children from doing something where there is a risk of getting hurt or of being criticized. Those of us who are lucky enough to have parents who say and do things to protect us are secure in the sense that our mothers and fathers care so much about us they cannot bear to see or feel our hurt.

Fortunately, from this sense of security, we can decide to draw the strength of self-confidence. We can listen to what our parents say and do to help us feel secure and loved and we can watch what they and others who influence us positively do to set a good example for us to follow, at any age, to develop the confidence we need to lead the way and then invite others from the middle of the pack to join us as we go over the top. Come to think of it, my mother’s a little over-the–top. Thank you Mum for your made-with-love words of caution that give me a sense of security and thank you too for showing me how to stay grounded while you go over the top!

With a healthy sense of security bestowed upon us with love from our parents, and the confidence we need to take the risk to step out of our comfort zone in the middle of the pack, we can aim for and achieve success to the nth degree and strike abundance instead of striking the status quo balance we’ve worked so hard to maintain for as long we have. In the human race, keeping up with the middle of the pack has its merit. Just imagine though how you can rejoice and be glad in it when you make your breakaway or make your splash.

Maybe instead of striking a balance, we could strive, along side our parents and our children, to strike abundance. With all the toning it down that's already going on out there, we're well equipped to keep the balance we've all been living and to keep ourselves at the same level or lower, without me jumping in on that band wagon. To strike abundance, to make our dreams come true, exactly what we need to do is to take it up a notch from where we are toward where we want to be.

I'm inviting everyone to write in the most over-the-top thing that has happened to you or to someone you know. Even better, write about the most over-the-top thing you dream of doing. We can all aim together to inspire and motivate each other to strike the abundance we deserve. It's gotta feel better to be over-the-top than to be toned down. Let's all step out of our comfort zones together and feel how it feels. It will be exhilarating. My husband called me over-the-top one time. I need to thank him for setting a high standard to live up to when he laid down that challenge. One last word of caution for us all to share. We will be careful not to protect ourselves from the opportunity to do greater things!

Over The Top To You,

Kathleen

Another Day, Another...? You Name It

2008-11-12T01:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Reader,

Thank you for visiting. Please do post a reply with a good story about what happenned to you today or to someone you know who is a forward thinking optimist.

I am hearing so many great stories from all of you who talk to me in person about what is happening for you. Your stories are inspiring to me and they are to others as well. Please share! One-up-manship for the greater good of all is not bragging. It's inspiring.

I have another fantastic passage to share with you today from Vic Johnson's book Day by Day with James Allen. With all the pessimism we are being bombarded with lately in the news about how our economy is suffering, this one is another that really is "worth thinking about" as Vic so aptly affirms as he sums up each entry in the very inspiring reading journal.

Conqer Doubt

"Thoughts of doubt and fear can never accomplish anything. They always lead to failure." - As a Man Thinketh

There is significant economic evidence that the Great Depression might have been avoided but for the "panic" that swept over the country (and the world) after the 1929 stock market crash. What should have been no more than a deep recession, altered our world forever because of the prevailing "thoughts of doubt and fear."

So great were the thoughts of fear that President Rooseveelt felt compelled to deliver a speech about it. By the way, FDR's speech with his now famous, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," was suggested to him by Napoleon Hill, author of the classic Think and Grow Rich.

If the thoughts of many can bring such great tragedy to our wolrd, is it any wonder that our personal thougths can do so much damage to our "individual world?" When we spend inordinate amounts of time fearing some thing or event in the future, many times that which we fear comes upon us. When it does, we wring our hands in despair and wonder why it had to happen to us, when in reality, we are responsible for our troubles.

Bob Proctor says that the process begins first with a thought of doubt, which causes an emotion of fear, which maninfests itself physically as anxiety. Anxiety robs us or our power, our energy and our purpose. Severe anxiety can even undermine our health. And it's all brought on by a thought of doubt.

I have found three things that help me conquer doubt. First, change your mind about the doubt, and keep it changed. If you have a doubt about whether you're going to have enough money to make it to the endd of the month, change your mind about it. Whenever the doubt creeps in, affirm to yourself that "I always find a way to have enough of what I need." I love what Emmet Fox says about this, "If you will change your mind concerning anything and absolutely keep it changed, that thing must and will change too. It is the keeping up of the change in thought that is difficult. It calls for vigilance and determination."

The second thing that overcomes fear and doubt is action. "Do the thing you fear and fear will disappear" is more than a nice rhying aphorism. It's some simple wisdom that always works!

And the third and most important thing to overcoming doubt and fear is Faith. Fear and Faith are directly opposite views of the future and the cannot co-exist. My Faith is in a Creator who has given me dominion over all things. Your Faith may be elsewhere, but know this: Faith and fear cannot be present at the same time.

And that's worth thinking about.

From Meditations for the Month by Vic Johnson
printed with the permission
Copyright (C) 2003-2008 Vic Johnson.
All rights reserved worldwide.
Change your thoughts, change your life
Free eBook - As A Man Thinketh James Allen's timeless cassic http://www.AsAManThinketh.net

Once again reader, it astounds me how relevant so much of what I read in Vic Johnson's journal is to so much of what is happenning in my life and in the lives of others I speak with. I am thankful for the opportunity to share his musings, in hopes that some of you who are reading will find what he has written to be as inspiring and helpful as I do.

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts

Shoes, Shoes, Wonderful Shoes!

2008-11-05T10:41:00.001-05:00

Hi all,

I have to share a great secret with you in hopes it will be helpful to you and your family.

There is a fantastic place in Toronto to get shoes for men, women and children. It's The Shoe Company Clearance Warehouse. The deal they have right now is 10% off the first item, 20% off the second item and 30% off the third item. Children's shoes range in price from about $4.99 to $19.99. They have a good selection of brand names. I got 3 pairs of children's boots for about $48.00. They were $19.00 each then the percentage discounts were applied. I got 3 pairs of children's dress shoes and a sweater for about $24.00.

The stuff is good quality brand name. The selection is hit and miss. Because it's a clearance outlet, you just have to choose from the sizes and styles available. Often they have what I need and sometimes it's a lost cause for me. Plan to need to spend an hour or so to search through the racks if you're shopping for more than one person. I try not to bring kids with me as the shelves are high and the aisles are long and it's easy to lose little ones and to end up leaving frustrated with nothing because I've been to preoccupied with keeping track of children instead of focusing on finding discount shoes for them.

I hope you'll find it's a great resource. There are often shoes for adults as well for as low as $9.99. There is also a small selection of clothing from which you can find the occasional gem.

The address is:
The Shoe Company
Warehouse Outlet 42 Kodiak Crescent Around the corner from Allen and Sheppard Downsview, ON M3J 3G5 P:(416)631-6522

The hours are:
Monday - Wednesday 10:00 - 6:00 Thursday - Friday 10:00 - 7:00 Saturday 10:00 - 6:00 Sunday 11:00 - 5:00

Does it get any better? Shoe shopping we can afford (sometimes)!

Here's a link:
http://www.theshoecompany.com/locator.ep#Ontario

Talk to you soon. Let's get those business plans done. Let's get our businesses up and running. Even when we're rich and famous, we'll still love buying discount shoes at The Shoe Company Warehouse on Kodiak. We can share the money we save on shoes for our own families by buying shoes for other families who can't afford them (yet.) We can be springs in the trampoline then for other families who are trying to set up their own small businesses that they will grow into large businesses, just like what we are doing now.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Accept No Limits (Vic Johnson)

2008-10-30T14:53:00.000-04:00

Hello again Life-Long Learners,

I have had the good fortune of uncovering a very inspiring resource and I have the honour and privilege here to share it with you in the hope you will find it helpful as you strive for the greatness you are capable of achieving...

Accept no Limits

"A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses." -- As a Man Thinketh

You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment. Any time you're ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you're capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts.

We each earn the income we do today because that is the amount we have limited ourselves to earn. We could easily earn 5, 10, 20 times or more if we did not limit ourselves through the thoughts we maintain.

Don't believe that's true? Surely you know people who earn much more than you who don't have your education, your skills, or your intelligence. So why do they earn more than you?

I love the story of George Dantzig that Cynthia Kersey wrote about in Unstoppable. As a college student, George studied very hard and always late into the night. So late that he overslept one morning, arriving 20 minutes late for class. He quickly copied the two math problems on the board, assuming they were the homework assignmnet. It took him several days to work through the two problmes, but finally he had a breakthrough and dropped the homework on the professor's desk the next day.

Later, on a Sunday morning, George was awakened at 6 a.m. by his excited professor. Since George was late for class, he hadn't heard the professor announce that the two unsolvable equations on the board were mathematical mind teasers that even Einstein hadn't been able to answer. But George Dantzig, working without any thought of limitaion, had solved not one, but two problems that had stumped mathmaticians for thousands of years.

Simply put, George solved the problems because he didn't know he couldn't.

Bob Proctor tells us to "keep reminding yourself that you have tremendous reservoirs of potential within you, and therefore you are quite capable of doing anything you set your mind to. All you must do is figure out how you can do it, not whether or not you can. And once you have made your mind up to do it, it's amazing how your mind begins to figure out how."

And that's worth thinking about.

From Meditations for the Month
by Vic Johnson

printed with the permission
Copyright (C) 2003-2008 Vic Johnson.
All rights reserved worldwide.
Change your thoughts, change your life
Free eBook - As A Man Thinketh James Allen's timeless cassic http://www.AsAManThinketh.net

I feel strongly that reading the texts compiled by Vic Johnson in his book, Meditations for the Month Day by Day with James Allen, has been an effective element in my journey to overcome a significant challenge and to ultimately take a leap into entrepreneurship to pursue my passion instead of worrying about contributing to my pension. When you remove limitation and open your mind to the possibilities of your own great potential, you set yourself in motion in the direction of the destination of your specific goal. Ideas will flow into your conscience to answer the hows that would otherwise be obstacles on your course from where you are to where you want to be.

Through the power of your own thoughts when you believe that you can, you make yourself as unstoppable as anyone else who has found their way to greatness. It's just plain simple and true. Once you know where you're going and figure out how you're going to get there, what is there to stop you? Again, I hope you will find Vic Johnson's thoughts which I will be printing periodically over the next few weeks, to be as helpful to you as I have found them to be.

Let's begin...

Ardently,

Kathleen

Formula for Self–Confidence by Napoleon Hill

2008-10-28T16:46:00.000-04:00

Hi to all,

Hope everyone is enjoying the crisp air and the crisp leaves and eagerly anticipating the crisp snow. According to the news reports, we should all be getting our flu shots to stay well.

I thought I would share a little booster too to help keep up the optimism. Keeping up confidence and keeping up optimism go hand in hand and both help us to stay well and even to get better. For any of you who do not already have a copy in hand or in mind, I'm posting Napoleon Hill's "Formula for Self Confidence" from the 1937 publication Think and Grow Rich.

"Formula for Self–Confidence"
from
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, 1937

I know I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life; therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment. I here and now promise to take such action.
I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality; therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of this person.
I know though the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression though some practical means of attaining the object; therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE.
I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life. I will never stop trying, until I have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.
I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.
I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

Name: _____________________

Signature: _____________________

Napoleon Hill’s Formula for Self-Confidence has been copied here with the consent and approval of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Please visit the website at www.naphill.org.

I hope you will find this inspiring and helpful and maybe even life-changing.

Take care.

Ardently,

Kathleen

Good, Good, Good, Good...

2008-10-22T16:15:00.000-04:00

Good for Kids, Good for Parents, Good for the Environment, Good for Finances, Good for a Better World for all.

Dear Readers,

I can't tell you how thrilled, elated, relieved and so on and so on... I am to have discovered EchoAge, a new concept in celebrating a child's birthday. As the mother of P 9, G 7, R 5, and D 3, I consider myself to be the luckiest mother ever in the whole wide world and it is my dearest hope that all other parents out there feel the same sense of fulfillment, pride and exhiliration.

Along with all the fulfillment, pride and exhiliration, I also have some sadness and frutstration at times. Two of our angel gifts arrived to us in the month of October and I am still in the midst of cleaning up from the second October birthday party of 2008. If only I had known of EchoAge, http://www.echoage.com/, before we threw the parties. Whenever we have the occasion to host a celebration for one of our troop, I have a deep sense of sadness and regret mingled in with the excitement. I feel sad about the money that somebody will be spending on a gift that my child might not appreciate because they already have too much clutter to even appreciate what they have. I feel sad about the piling up in the landfill sites because so much of what is available in the toy market is complete junk and breaks the day the package is opened and does not get returned to the store as the parents don't know where the gift was bought and don't have the receipt or the time or the wherewithall to hold the manufacturers responsible. I feel sad about the extra clutter that will be added to my basement, when I don't seem to be able to find the time to help sort it out and to gather all the pieces of an unappreciated toy to move it to somewhere else where it could be another child's treasure. Mostly, I feel sadness thinking about another child somewhere who has no clutter to sort through -- some with nothing at all even.

This concept is brilliant. It helps address all of these problems and more. As is highlighted on the EchoAge site, it helps reduce the waste of packaging and wrapping material, it helps children learn a fabulous lesson about sharing and it gives children a great sense of achievement when they know they are contributing to the happiness of another child as well as they celebrate their own birthday. The benefits are so manifold I'm overwhelmed!!! This is so great!!! Thank you Debbie and Allison for taking action to help on so many levels. Congratulations on your success.

I am all the more thrilled to see that one of the charities you support is one that I also hold dear to my heart, Free The Children. I feel almost a sense of kindred spiritedness as I too have just started a company and one of the most compelling reasons I decided to take the blind faith leap into entrepreneurism was that I wanted to find a way to support Free the Children, [http://www.freethechildren.com/index.php], and another worthy charitable organization I just learned of recently called Hands for Help, [http://www.bilaalrajan.com/confirm.html]. Both of these charitable organizations were founded by children with respective mottos of "Children helping children through education," for the former and "Inspiring kids to help kids," for the latter. Compelled by the words of Craig Kielburger when he was 12 years old, "Nobody has an excuse good enough to ignore the problems of these child workers," our family felt a need to find a way to help.

Our new company is called Commuteducation. Our aim is to raise proceeds and awareness for these two noble organizations, while selling educational and self-development material in audio and video format as inspired by the mottos of the two. We are truly elated to see the brilliant means by which EchoAge has found a way to make the world a better place in so many ways. Congratulations and best wishes for all the success and goodness you deserve for your efforts and initiative, which make me think of a story I heard yesterday about God's boomerang that always finds its way back to those who do good deeds. You rock!

Our next round of birthdays is in July, when we have our other two to celebrate. For the first time in the history of my motherhood, I'm not putting off the planning until the last second. I have a great idea, thanks to EchoAge. I love it. In the meantime, I'm planning to share it with as many others as I can.

Ardently,

Kathleen Betts
commuteduation@lycos.com
http://www.commuteducation.com/

The Power of One-Upmanship Story Telling

2008-10-21T14:58:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

I have so much to write about, I'm not even sure where to start. There is so much "some kind of wonderful" in this world, we can hardly take it all in. Have you had a chance to soak in the scenery and scents of the fall foliage? What a treat of a feast of awe we've had over the past couple of weeks! The sheer joy of it is all the more splendid knowing we get to be a part of it over and over year after year, with just enough change to make it a must each time. As much as times change, almost every year I catch myself and others saying it's never been quite like this any other year before. I already can't wait for next year.

Whoa!! Everything is going so fast already. No need to rush the years. I've been thinking a lot lately about things that have happened over the years. There is so much to be grateful for. I have been influenced a lot by inspiring authors and learning to concentrate my thoughts on what is good. When we understand that our thoughts dictate our feelings, it seems overwhelmingly simple to resolve to concentrate our thoughts on good things. Really - the concept is that simple. We feel good when we think about good things. When we feel good, it's much easier to help others around us feel good too and to make more good things happen in our lives. As we continue to think about all of these new good things that keep happening, we end up feeling good over and over. It really is a vicious cycle. On the flip side, we know that thoughts about not so good things creep into our minds all the time. It's well worthwhile to make a conscious effort to dismiss them. We're all so good at dismissing thoughts.

Why does it seem to be so easy to forget about a kind gesture from a precious child like a good morning hug or an offer to share a bite of a Smartie, in contrast to how we can never get over an irate gesture of road rage or some other such inconsequential happenstance that occurs in our day? Think about which you would be more likely to recount to a spouse at the end of the day. It's mindboggling why so many of us would choose to propel the misery instead of the bright spot in our day. Maybe we are afraid it comes off as bragging if we talk about something good that happened. Let's try to think of it instead as a way to help someone else feel good and to attract more goodness into our lives. Think about the power of the contageousness of one-upmanship story telling. It has exponential potency whether we share good thoughts and feelings or bad ones. Let's carefully choose which are the right thoughts to dismiss and which are the right ones to relay back and forth with others around us.

Here's the challenge. Let's outdo each other in telling about something great that happened to us today or in the last few days - or ever in our lives for that matter. It's never too late to tell about something that made you smile or made you laugh or warmed your heart. I'll start. I just have to think for a minute while I choose which thing to talk about... hmmm. There really is a lot when you think about it. Please do share yours on the blog and then share again with someone you love or care about or share another story of inspiration to help yourself and others feel good as well. Here goes mine. This one warmed my heart and I hope it will warm yours too.

Yesterday morning, I was working away on the computer, having all the usual technical challenge difficulties I tend to have when I'm in a hurry to get something done. My husband walked into the room with a cup of coffee for me. He just thought I might like one. I hadn't even asked for it. It's amazing how a small thing can make such a difference to your day. I'll have to be sure to tell him that I was so thankful, I 'm still thinking about it more than a day later. Maybe I could even just do some nice little thing for him or someone else without them even asking. That would warm my heart and hopefully someone else's too.

Warm-heartedly,

Kathleen

No Regrets -- Grow Your Roots

2008-10-16T15:07:00.000-04:00

Hello Friends from Microskills and all Dear Readers!

When those of us who were fortunate enough to be there gathered for our Microskills group session this morning, we were treated to many inspiring stories.

Thank you to Pilar and to Nancy for setting a good example for us to follow and for taking the initiative to be the first to volunteer to present your business plans for us. Thank you to Zya and Nafisa and others for sharing readings or recounts of your own experience to inspire us all. Thank you to Christie for your guidance and instruction over the past few weeks. We have appreciated your knowledge and your encouragement and we look forward to keeping in touch to share success stories.

As we continue to grow together in our endeavours, I was reminded today of an awesome story I had heard recently about the Bamboo tree and how it grows. I had heard the story on a self-devlopment cd I have from T. Harv Eker of fame for his Millionaire Mind work. I found the story posted at this link: http://attractingyourgoals.com/law-of-attraction-21/.

I hope you can take a few moments to read it in hopes you will find it inspiring too. Please enjoy. We may feel like we should be further ahead than we are. We have to remember that our progress is not always as visible as we would like it to be sometimes. We are growing an intricate root structure as a foundation for the enormous growth and development we envision in the next two to five years. Seven figures ladies!!! Oh how we will be able to help others!! Isn't it wonderful!

Ardently,

Kathleen

It Feels Like One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

2008-10-06T14:42:00.000-04:00

Hello to my Microskills Colleagues and to other dear readers also on the path to greatness:

Can you believe it's October? What a vibrant time of the year it is. Students are getting settled into their new routines, many among us are celebrating holidays, we're all being treated with the feast of fall colours in the foliage, and of course we're all excited and enthused about the upcoming federal election ; ) and best of all, we're laser focused on developing our ideas from inception to implementation. We're doing "whatever it takes" to move forward.

It just seems like we're not moving as quickly as we would like to be sometimes and we even feel like we're losing some ground in a dance of one step forward and two steps back. Let's think of it as just that. One step forward two steps back is one of the step patterns in the dance to success.

Thank you to my friends at Microskills for the inspiration and ideas you give to me. I'm elated with every step of this journey, even when I'm taking a few steps back to get myself onto the right path. We can propel ourselves forward with the power and energy we get from the encouraging words of others in our circles.

I have another passage to share with you today for inspiration. Kasey was kind enough today to bring in a copy of The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. The four page introduction is riveting. I hope that Paul Coelho will not mind me sharing his inspiring words with all of you, in hopes we can all gain some insight and the motivation we need to "think we can dance." The entire introduction is powerful and well worth reading. I'll just entice you with a few words herein: "I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though is to fall seven times and to get up eight times."

Sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Sometimes we put too much focus on the steps back and forget to count them also as steps forward in our journey of life-long learning. It's beautiful! "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." Henry Ford. So you think you can dance!

Ardently,

Kathleen

P.S. Speaking of inspiration, treats of poetry and muffins made with love from Ava and Amina today were decadent and energizing. Thank you for the boosts and the reminders we need to take care of ourselves and to take care of others we love.

2008-10-01T13:27:00.000-04:00

Thank you Nancy for the yoga boost to get us started today. You were awesome. You have to get into the schools and help the children and the teachers. Your passion for what you do is so evident. You're a natural and the stressful environment of the schools needs your soothing.

Thank you also to all of you for your indulgence in listening to my story. I know it's a bit long and it was the end of the day and I appreciate your indulgence all the more as I know it was time to go and get on with other things. I am attaching the draft for your use if you are interested in reading the story or any part of it for your kids. If you have any suggestions, your opinions matter to me a great deal. If you would like a hard copy to read to your kids, I would be thrilled to provide one. Your kids opinions matter to me too.

I recently met someone who just launched his first book. He suggested I start by sharing my manuscript with a small group of trusted friends. It seemed to me he must be talking about all of you, albeit he might not have known it. I hope that we can all be honest and helpful to each other as we work together through the ups and downs and barriers we meet along the way to getting ourselves to where we want to be. We have to choose to get past whatever comes along that stands in our way.

Thank you again for listening. Let's just do it (swoosh)!!!

In order for you to profit from your mistakes, you have to get out and make some.- Anonymous

Ardently,

Kathleen

End of Month Boost

2008-09-30T14:35:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

Happy end of month! Hope when you look back on it you can see clearly what significant steps you have taken to advance toward your objectives and that you are all set to embrace the challenges of further advancement in the days and months ahead.

Looking back on your accomplishments will give you the boost you need to move ahead. Remember to recognize the benefits of setbacks you may have encountered. What might appear to be an error or mistake, is really a learning opportunity in disguise. If you made a choice that ended up costing you money or time, ensure you learn all you can from it and think of what you might otherwise consider a loss, as an investment in your lifelong learning initiative. It is only a loss if you do not take the initiative to improve your situation from the experience. Shifting your frame of mind can give you an invaluable energy boost to keep you focused on progressing toward your goals and dreams.

To persevere and progress, we need to nurture our psyche, our soul, and we have to nourish the body we host them in. One of the "mistakes" many of us make is to forget to nourish our bodies properly. Let's learn from our past and promise ourselves to treat our bodies better in the future. What we put into our host bodies is an important ingredient in the recipe for success. We do ourselves a tremendous favour by putting good energy into our bodies so that good energy can come out. I had the joy today of indulging in some good energy in and I thought I would share a recipe from our good friend Amina. Just reading this can make your body start to feel better. Imagine the benefits to your psyche and soul if you feed this good energy into your body. Amina has graciously agreed to share this recipe to give us all a boost. Please try it and share your comments and compliments.

Ardently,

Kathleen

WOW
Fresh food is real medicine.
Feel that healing energy.

Immune Boosting Soup

Shop for fresh, preferably organic…

Buy these fresh ingredients
Choose organic, make sure the food is fresh
Know the source of your food, if you cut the vegetables and you see any different colour than vegetable throughout the whole thing, don’t bother cutting out the bad part. The whole vegetable is spoiled and contains bad energy.
I believe food is energy. By that I mean natural energy we need to function. If the fruit that you are eating is spoiled or has bad energy, that will affect your energy level. You will be wondering, why am I feeling bad, not realizing that the bad energy in the food you have eaten is the cause.

One piece of chicken breast
¼ cup vinegar
½ - 1 teaspoon chilly powder
4 cups of water
1/2 cayenne peppers
4 garlic cloves / peeled/ chopped
1 onion
1 lemon
1 cup of celery
2 cups of carrots
1 teaspoon of oregano
1 teaspoon of thyme

Start by cutting up the chicken in to bite-size pieces. Let it soak in vinegar and chilly powder, for 20 min.
Put it in the frying pan with some canola oil. Make sure the oil is getting hot. You should hear sizzling noise when you add the chicken. Cook the chicken on medium for ten min. Keep turning the chicken in the pan. At this point you can turn up the heat to make your chicken nice and golden until it is ready. The best way to tell the chicken is ready is to put fork in the chicken You will see clear juice com out of the chicken.
That is sign the chicken is done.
If you like salt, you can add it and you can add small amounts (pinch to ½ tsp.) of herbs such as cumin and coriander. Yummy!! It’s time to serve and enjoy! Eat plenty until you feel better. Rice or corn complement nicely.

There Are No Coincidences!!!!

2008-09-27T23:41:00.000-04:00

Hello to my good friends at Microskills and welcome to other dear readers as well...

As we have discussed together in our Self Employment Training Group where we gather to discuss our new business ideas and support each other to advance toward our respective goals... "We create our own destinies." "Everything happens for a reason." "There are no coincidences." To some these words are platitudes and to others among us who are in the process of joining the ranks of those who intend to do great things to make our world even better than it already is, these words are so evidently meaningful and inspiring, it's mindbending and life-transforming.

I had the very good fortune this evening to accompany my husband to his 20th anniversary high school reunion. I met some amazing people, as I knew I would. What I mean is, I knew I would because I went there tonight having a deep desire and a will to meet amazing people. I didn't go there just wondering if I might meet some interesting people. That would have been very different. As we all know, if I hadn't had the specific intention and the deep desire, my actions and results would have been very different.

I decided to start by introducing myself to a woman named Sheela. Sheela was from Kenya and explained to me that she had come to Canada as the result of her involvement with an organization called Save the Children. As my cohorts at Microskills know from my rantings, I have a passion to find a way to help an organization called Free the Children. As we shared a common interest in the cause of improving the living standards for children around the world, we struck up a lively conversation. We were soon joined by another wonderful woman, Narmin, who was also from Kenya. "It's a small world after all..." (platitude or mindbending truism?)

It turned out that Narmin and her husband, Karim, have been doing some work to help Free the Children. Well...of course I was riveted to hear more about what these amazing people do. It turns out they have a graphics company brilliatly named eighty20. We've talked in our group about wanting to move from the eighty to the 20 and the razor's edge difference in what we might do or not do to make that difference in our lives. Karim has just written a book called Keep Any Promise. It's in the self-development genre, which those who know me, know is my passion. I was all the more hooked and intrigued to hear more. When I got home I immediately checked out the website and it's very exciting stuff. Please check it out for yourself as well: http://www.keepanypromise.com/. It's right up the "goal-setting-positive-thinking-follow-your-dreams-attitude" style of thinking we all are embracing as we are all engaged in the business set-up process. It was my honour and good fortune to have the opportunity to meet and get to know these incredible people.

That wasn't all though. Because I was on a mission to meet riveting people, and I mentioned that I am working on a children's story that I intend to develop as an educational video program, Karim pointed me in the direction of another amazing person who was present at the event. I got to meet Rob, who recently started up a video production company called Lightstream Pictures. What an awesome experience. I met the man, shook his hand, was in awe of the accomplishments he could recount, and am of course exhilirated with the hope that I might share one of my ideas for a children's educational series to create the project of my dreams. Please also check out this website: http://www.lightstreampictures.com/. I spoke directly to the man. He showed interest in what I had to say and suggested that I get in touch to follow up on whether his company might consider my project. Can this be real???!!!

I hope that all of you reading also have recent awesome stories of experiences to recount about steps toward your goals or are about to have stories of awesome experiences to recount about steps toward your goals. With Kathy, our brilliant and charismatic leader, having had the good sense to encourage us to speak of a noble cause we would like to support, we are all the more aware of our own personal reasons for needing to succeed. If we can just take the actions we need to take to get closer to our goals, we are at least that much closer to contributing to the noble causes that inspire us to want to do the great things that exist as ideas in our minds. Once the seed of the idea germinates, we have to fertilize it and help it grow into the reality it is meant to be. At very least, my eyes and my heart and my will are more open to the opportunities as a result of taking a little step out of my comfort zone when I decided to introduce myself to Sheela tonight. "There are no coincidences!" (Platitude or mind-bending life-changing truism -- pssst, it's what we make it.)

Thank you dear readers for indulging me with your interest and attention. There are so many more wonderful things happening than I can't dare to write about them all here. It's time for the writer and the readers to focus on specific actions that will advance us toward our goals. Please do share your stories to inspire and energize others. The little boost someone gets from hearing your good news could be the razor's edge difference they need.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Children Are Our Richest Resource For The Future

2008-09-24T13:39:00.000-04:00

Good day to you dear readers,

Thanks to a lovely friend that has recently entered into my circle and offered her encouragement and enlightenment on what is good in the world today. Thank you to my lovely new friend, Veronica for sharing her copy of "Daily Word for Women", and to writers Colleen Zuck, Janice Wright, and Elaine Meyer for compiling inspiring the inspiring words. I hope they will not mind me sharing an exceptionally beautiful passage from their work, in hopes the message will reach more children to help them to understand how precious they are. We are not all so well gifted with words as as some others are. For those of us who cannot find the words to express our sentiments of admiration, faith and adoration for our children, perhaps we can borrow the following and take some time at the end of the day to let them know:

Beloved,
You are precious to Me. You always have been and always will be. I love you and will always love you. My creation of you did not stop when you were born into this world. You were not finished then, nor are you finished now. You have far to go. But if you grow weary, remember that I am with you and I will carry you. You have so much to discover! May you find joy in each thought that connects you consciously with My life within you. May you discover wisdom with each feeling that brings you a clearer understanding of your own spiritual identity. Each time you face a challenge with faith, you help to light up the world with sacred awareness. And what a light of hope you are! So my beloved, let the light of My spirit within you shine as you continue to learn and grow, to hope and trust. Yes, I am with you -- always.

Perhaps we can borrow from these words as well to know and accept how precious we are to our Father and to inspire ourselves to love one another and to do all that we can to help one another and to make the gift of this World we share as wonderful as it can be. Let's find something we can do today to be helpful to someone else, so that they too can feel as precious as they are and in turn help another.

Thank you to all who are out there touching on my life and on the lives of others so that we can all understand our purpose and ultimately fulfill it.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Making the World a Happier Place One Person at a Time -- Start with Ourselves

2008-09-19T15:14:00.000-04:00

Wow!!! What a week it's been on the journey of lifelong learning. Hope we've all managed to know some items of the "to do" list and feel good about the what we've accomplished and super positive about what to do next.

I stumbled on some formidable quotes today to help us get some perspective on what we have to do to transform the world from as good as it already is, the even better place we envision it to be.

But where was I to start? The world is so vast. I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No: my home. No: my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.-- Elie Wiesel

I always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that, then I realized I was somebody.-- Lily Tomlin

Beautiful! Let's make the world a happier place by first being happier with where we are and what we are doing. We must figure out our purpose and work steadily and continuously toward the vision we conjure in our mind's eye. Let's do it.

Today I had the very good fortune to be graced with the presence of some of the truest friends a person could ever hope for. Beverley, Mariana and Vivian gave me a gentle reminder of how lovely it is to give of your time and efforts to help uplift the spirit's of a friend to encourage perseverence in the pursuit of what is right. May those who give me showered with the abundance they deserve.

I have had the good fortune to learn so much and to gain so much inspiration from the people who surround me. As the realization dawns on me more and more vividly day after day, I am about to burst with gratitude for all the potential we all have to help ourselves by helping others. What a feeling!!

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Wednesday -- What a Great Day!!!

2008-09-17T13:44:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about this oh so inspiring quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson today and just was bursting to share it with others. I love it so much and the whole concept these words so aptly capture, are so riveting and inspiring I want to help everybody have them indellibly inscribed in their conscience...

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let's make sure to help ourselves today by doing at least one specific and deliberate gesture to help someone in need.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Thank God it's Monday

2008-09-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

It's a fabulous Monday...

To my fellow participants in the SET Program at Microskills, this is a big week. Let's get our Business Plans in ship shape for Thursday - or at least on their way to ship shape.

What an incredible opportunity this if for us to help each other and to learn from each other and to support each other and to be thankful for the chance to benefit from this program.

I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to learn from the expertise of Kathy and Christy and to get to know all of you and share in your passion and enthusiasm while we trailblaze our way along our paths to success.

I found another great source of inspiration that I thought I would share in hopes that you will find it helpful as well... This one is a lot of fun.

Please visit the site if you need a boost: http://www.tut.com/. It's amazing what a little boost can do to help renew your enthusiasm and passion to follow your dreams. Also, it's uncanny (that's one of my grandmother's words) how accurately the little notes for the day you can receive from this site will seem to uniquely suit your personal situation. Mike Dooley, the founder of this site is one of the gurus of positive thinking who is featured in the Secret, for those of you who have had the chance to see the video. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, please let me know if you're interested. While I'm on the subject, and relentlessly promoting potential sources of inspiration, here's a link to that site as well: http://thesecret.tv/.

For any of you who would like to look up the meaning of my grandmother's word, here's another link I hope will be helpful: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/uncanny. Last but not least, for my fellow SETers, here's the link to the site we need to complete our assignments for tomorrow: http://www.surveymonkey.com/.

Take care.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Why Wait To Be Great?

2008-09-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

There is so much more we are all capable of than what we do. We think and talk about what grand things we will do one day to help the world. We think we have to reach some mystical milestone in our career or education path before we can begin to offer that help to make a real difference in the lives of others. If our ultimate objective is to help others, we can start right now with those who are by our sides. We can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. I have caught myself recently saying "I wish I could help with your youth group, but I just don't have the time." The irony is, I was thinking I didn't have time because I was so busy working on setting up my business because I want to raise enough money to help children all over the world. It suddenly dawned on me that I had stumbled on an opportunity to help children right here in the world. Funny how the universe hands us exactly what we want. I figured out that helping with a youth group for an hour a week doesn't mean that I have to abandon the cause to help children in other parts of the world as well, when I reach that mystical milestone. It just means that I can start right now to help others do great things right now instead of waiting until later to do great things later. It's win win win!!! If ultimately what we want is a better world with more happiness for everyone, the best thing is to start right now with what we can do right now.

I have found some astoundingly well crafted words of wisdom and inspiration to share with you for today. I hope these quotes will strike a chord with you to help set you on the path to making all your magnificent dreams come true by taking a specific and measurable step today and to continue doing that each and every day.

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.

But there was always some obstacle in the way,

Something to be gotten through first,

some unfinished business,

time still to be served,

or a debt to be paid.

Then life would begin.

At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

-- Alfred D Souza

Understanding Happiness

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time...and remember that time waits for no one. So, stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you are off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy."
-- Author Unknown

If what we want to do is help others, then let's do that. We have no time to waste to cite off all the reasons we can't help. Why wait to be great? There's a Youth Group program called
Think 2wice that runs from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Prayer Palace at Finch and 400 in Toronto on Friday nights. Does anyone have time to help? If you can help, please let us know and we'll get you hooked up with the particulars. If you're not free Fridays from 8 to 9, hopefully there's something else you can do that will help others and make you feel maaarvellous at the same time. One person at a time, we can make everyone in the world a whole lot happier. Each one of us can start with ourselves.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Remember!

2008-09-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

I read a passage yesterday in Bob Proctor's book "You Were Born Rich." It seemed to me to be strikingly appropriate to share it today in remembrance of the heroes who lost their lives, their livelihoods or their loved ones in the tragedy on this date seven years ago, September 11, 2001...

I hope that Mr. Proctor will not mind me sharing his inspiring thought as follows:

"All things are merely manifestations of energy and Spirit. When the world comes to understand this great truth, we will be aware that all people are the same; they only appear to be different. The true dividing lines for mankind are not borders, color or language, but simply ignorance and its polar opposite, understanding." -- Bob Proctor, You Were Born Rich (from chapter 8, The Law of Vibration and Attraction)

To give more meaning and purpose to the sacrifices on this date that are indellibly inscribed in our beings, we must remember to make it our mission to understand "this great truth" and to make it the reality in this World we all share.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Step it Up!

2008-09-10T10:51:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

I found these three exceptionally motivating quotes for all of us who are forging new paths with passionate hope for positive changes in our World...

I had to share!

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today? -Mary Manin Morrissey

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire. -Dale Carnegie

The vision must be followed by the venture.
It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.”
- Vance Havner

If we all help each other to move ahead, what can possibly hold us back? Let's go!!!

Ardently yours,

Kathleen

Commuteducation

2008-09-08T14:50:00.000-04:00

Hi,

I'm Kathleen. Thank you for joining my blog. It is my sincere hope to be able to help to inspire you to be as great as you can be. "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

We're starting up a new web-based distributorship for educational and self-development material and we're calling ourselves Commuteducation. Our dream is to reach our potential to help others reach theirs. The goal of Commuteducation is to make good use of commute and travel time for adults and children everywhere. We want to help you to find educational and self-development material in video or audio format to set you on the path from self-discovery to achievement, success and happiness. We are all on a journey of lifelong learning and we want to help you to make the most of your "drive-through education" options to help you transform what could be stressful commute time into an oasis of personal development opportunity that is securely cemented into your everyday habits and schedule.

For the greater good of all, we want to incorporate a mission to raise awareness for the Free the Children Organization to help eliminate child labour worldwide. Our vision is to contribute largely to the noble efforts of the Free the Children organization, in concert with our aim to encourage self-development on an individual basis so that the end result is greater fulfilment of potential for all and advancement toward harmony in this World we all share. Toward that end, it is our pleasure to have the good fortune to inspire and motivate our readers with daily notes of spiritual encouragement and words of wisdom from other like-minded achievers, high fliers, go-getters, hard workers, doers, self-starters and innovators from the past and the present, to ensure the promise of our future is as good as it gets.

Ardently yours,

Kathleen Betts
Founder
Commuteducation