Life’s Passions and Monkey Business

May 6th, 2010

Intro
I’d like to tell a story that I think I first read in one of John C. Maxwell leadership books. It’s about 5 different monkeys, their names have been changed to protect the innocent. You will know who you are after your done reading this post.

Story
There was a large cage that had five monkeys in it. Well you know how much monkeys like bananas right? Someone tied a banana onto a piece of twine and hung it high in the center of the ceiling. It was hung so high that none of the monkeys could jump up and get it. The monkeys stood staring up at the bananas. The door to the cage was opened and a set of stairs were placed underneath the bananas so that it would allow a monkey to walk up and jump and get a banana.

After a while a monkey goes and starts climbing the stairs. When he reaches the second stair, all of the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. The monkeys retreat and stare once again. Another monkey decides he will try which resulted in all the monkeys getting sprayed. A strange thing occurs. When the next monkey tries to get a banana, the other four monkeys prevent him from trying by attacking him.

Don’t Stop Believin’

March 12th, 2010

This has to be one of my favorites from the eighties, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, by Journey. Maybe it has something to do with me always rooting for the underdog. Maybe it has to do with the stories I hear where people are driven by their longings and passions to find a better way than their current situations find them. The lyrics always do end up with what motivates everyone, either positively or negatively, emotion. The characters in the song, you and I, are on a journey to fulfill our destines. As long as we continue to “Don’t Stop Believin’”, we can create and fulfill our destiny.

A case in point is the 5th grade choir who preform the song. They are from Staten Island New York, (PS 22 Chorus), and have achieved world wide accolades. They have been on Night Line, MTV, ABC World News, and many other shows. Hearing their worldly themes of love, cynicism, loss, faith and often betrayal sang with so much earnestness by such young children lends the lyrics an aching vulnerability that yanks at my heart strings and should brings tears to many eyes. What a great gift these children have given to the world for all of us to experience.

Write From the Heart

July 14th, 2009

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working with some folks who are just starting out blogging. A part of their the training has been to go into the Word Press interface and actually do a lot of the setup themselves. For some, this has probably been the most technical thing they’ve ever done with their computers. I know that I’ve wrangled a bit with setting up blogs over the years and even this one took much much longer than I would have liked. I still do have a few things to iron out, but I’ll get there. I have enjoyed seeing a lot of these people grow tremendously in a very short time. I especially enjoy everyone’s first posts.

One of the common threads I see is that people are realizing that they need to and want to reach beyond their capabilities and learn about different ways of doing things. Others are sharing their passions in very graphic detail and taking risks at exposing their feelings. Now I know this may be harder for the guys, but I’m amazed at the quality of writing I see. I sometimes tend to approach it in too clinical a fashion and don’t pour enough of ME into them as much as I would like, or should. I had commented over on another site about some new people wanting everything to be perfect. There are a lot who dread having to create content everyday. In a previous post I spoke that no matter the topic, people are interested in YOUR perspective. They want to know what YOU think and why. They want to know how YOU arrived at that perspective. They are looking for someone like themselves. So if your looking at creating content that is perfect just remember, when you write from the heart, it is perfect and if your writing is from the heart, then you will not disappoint.

Photo credit
Linda Cronin

Related Blogs

Related Blogs on Action

Related Blogs on How To
How to wash a queen-size bedspread / comforter? » Living Sense
How to make styrofoam homemade tombstones stand up without tearing …

My Passion For Building My Business

July 7th, 2009

Johnathan Budd had a highly passionate post with a video and at the end we were asked to leave a comment:

I want you to LEAVE the BIGGEST reason you are building your business, spending your time learning new goals, researching how to succeed, and developing yourself into an entrepreneur.

This is how I responded.

I am driven. I am motivated. In that internet marketing is now a science, it is the creative aspects that I like. Creative aspects for me are the results from the originality of thought, the expression, the interaction, the learning, the teaching, and gaining satisfaction from accomplishment. The challenges make it much more fulfilling than any 9-5 job ever could. It’s like I am painting a masterpiece and I have to concentrate on the brush strokes on a small corner of the painting. As I work on the colors and learn how to mix the paint to achieve the exact real life colors and textures and then transfer them to the canvas, a picture of the future is emerging.

I of course will have to consult with others with whom I will associate to have them help and guide me and give me perspective to the process of finishing the painting. And it will be those relationships that I end up fostering that will determine whether my painting is a masterpiece. I can’t do it myself and when I do finish the painting, it will be because of those with whom I trusted and shared my passions. The success will be reciprocal as one of my passions is to help people understand and achieve things that they didn’t know they could archive or thought unattainable. My way is perfect only for me. But there are things I can offer that will help others and in return I will learn from others.

In the end, I want to be able to help people and kids in some of the eastern Europe countries that would make a typical U.S. minimum wage job seem like a muti 6 figure job here. Outside of the main cities there are families that live on $50 a month, don’t have a water heater, use outhouses still, and live the life our parents and grandparents lived in the 20′s and 30′s. There are orphanages whose conditions are deplorable at best, and run by corrupt governments and bureaucracies were little ends up directly benefiting the children. That’s my dream. to see the smile of some happy children who are the happiest they’ve been in their lives just because I bought them all some new shoes.