Have a Great Life

I want to thank my friends at the Crack On Foundation for this one.

http://www.crackon.org

Here are four strategies to help you live an exceptional life:
 
1. CHOOSE THE COMPANY YOU KEEP – CAREFULLY.
 
Those around you always influence and have an effect on your
state-of-mind and feelings. The fact is: part of your brain models
the behavior and possibly even the thoughts of those around you.
 
Perhaps this is a good time for you to do a quick and honest
inventory of your friends, acquaintances and business associates.
 
Do they inspire and recharge you – or deplete and frustrate you?
The reality is that you may need to make some new and tough choices
about the people you surround yourself with.

 

2. MODEL EXCELLENCE.
 
Brain science studies leave no doubt that we, as humans, model and
internalize the behavior of others. So doesn’t it make sense to
model and learn from the best and the brightest? Consider taking
the time to review your goals and pinpoint your passion. What
engages you and sparks your creativity?
 
Once you have identified your passion, you can explore and seek out those
who have already successfully achieved what you wish to achieve. You
will be pleasantly surprised how much you can learn about their habits,
their thinking and how they manage their time. Professional
athletes and coaches have taken advantage of this built-in brain
skill for years by using mental practice and imagery. You can too.
 
3. BECOME AWARE OF HOW YOU SEE YOUR FUTURE UNFOLDING.
 
The same mirror neurons fire whether you perform an action or task,
watch someone else perform an action or task, or simply “imagine”
performing an action or task. This mind-bending discovery opens up
endless possibilities for you to apply your imagination. What,
specifically, do you imagine happening in your future? What are
your goals and expectations? Is your imagined future positive or
negative? Will you achieve success or succumb to failure?
 
4. APPLY YOUR IMAGINATION IN A PROACTIVE, POSITIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE
WAY.
 
Choose one specific goal you want to accomplish. Create a
realistic, clear, emotionally-based “mental movie” or
“visualization” of your goal “as if” it has already occurred –
successfully. It is your success movie of the future that will
impact your subconscious to take the actions necessary to make it
happen. Visualize your success movie for 1-3 minutes a day for 30
days.
 
Your brain is equipped for success. Reread this article, follow
these four strategies and you will live an exceptional life.
 
~ James Mapes   http://www.JamesMapes.com

Another excerpt from “Dark Side of Uranus”

And what of Fairy Hanny?

Well it will be of no great surprise to realise that this stoic Handmaiden of the Fat King Innocent carried on regardless. She would have preferred to carry on cruising with her cousin Mutch; however she’d accept she would have to carry on camping with this bunch of retards. The swamp wood was depressing and she understood that soon they would have to carry on up the jungle in order to locate the Castle of Maurice. Her only real concern just now related to the creepy looks she sometimes got from Ken Tucky; looks that said he’d like to carry on up the Khyber.

found on the net…

Trust us! You want to read this story…

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn’t stop for directions.

I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

Apparently, I’m still lost… It’s a man thing.

More singing Fish

As our explorers heave to off the coast of Flaw Reader, we are introduced to Steven who runs a Fish and Chip shop much-loved by the Witches, Ogres and other unsavoury characters.

Steven was originally a purveyor of fine Fish in Chips in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, but due to a mishap as the Witch Iz played with her time shifting RING, he found himself transported across space-time to Uranus.

However, being a good old boy from Suffolk he decides to make the most of things, catching and selling Sole to all on sundry.

In his Epicurean Eatery he keeps a Choona Fish in a tank to keep the customers entertained.

There are times when the Choona refuses to sing, making Steven rather angry, so he batters him about a bit, at which point he croons;

“Here I am at the bottom of the Sea,

Swimming round in gallons of wee,

Then my darling can’t you see,

You’re taking the piss if you eat me!”

Attitude – grrrrrr!

The older I get the less I care what others think of me.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my
life. Attitude, to me, is more important than fact. It is more
important than the past, than education, than money, than
circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people
think or say or do. It is more important than appearances,
giftedness or skills. It will make or break a company, a church, a
home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding
the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our
past; we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain
way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is
play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am
convinced that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how I react
to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.”
(Charles Swindoll)

 

Go for it!!!!

Keep on writing

I spend hours every day writing; funny and serious, Tales from Uranus and the Adventures of Inspector Flaange.

I found this article helped me understand why…

A five-letter word is my secret.

As you probably know, routine casts a trance-like power with
devastating impact. As a result, it is an absolute necessity to
break free of its grasp.

If you can’t find a way out of the vicious pattern and into a new
set of thoughts, feelings, and actions, you have no hope of
changing or improving your life.

Consider this five-letter word my guaranteed release.

Working with remarkable speed, it personally shakes me out of
autopilot, delivers an eye-opening wake-up call, and motivates with
more force than anything I know.

Not bad for a five-letter word.

My hope–and my assumption–is that it will have the same positive
effect on you.

The Word, My Release
I know a time will come when I’ll no longer be able to act on the
things I want, the things I’ve dreamed about experiencing and
things I’ve always wished to become.

I will have to let them go. I will have to let go of all those
exciting ideas I tossed about in my mind, all the goals carefully
constructed while daydreaming.

They will have to be put to rest, once and for all. And I will
never experience them.

Never.

This is a frightening thought for me. It is startling, can be
gut-wrenching, and tip-toes toward terrifying.

But it’s also something else. And it’s here, on the other side of
the coin, that I find my secret.

The Flip-Side of the Word
Coming to grips with reality can be scary.

So much so, that most men and women choose the other door. They
hide from the truth and tuck their dreams into the fairytale
‘someday.’

‘I’ll do it someday…someday.’

A sigh of relief follows and it’s back to the safe and comfy
routine. No need to face fears, no need to rise to challenges, no
need to take action. That will all happen someday–but not today.

If only this were true. It is not.

Here is the truth: Someday eventually meets the edge of the cliff.
Someday eventually runs out.

Someday eventually turns into never.

Frightening? Perhaps. But it’s also your way out. It’s also your
release from the routine that strangles your hopes and dreams.

By focusing intently–and I mean intently– on ‘never,’ in regard
to your lifelong wishes and wants, you will be shocked out of your
pattern of procrastination and jolted into a new mindset.

You’ll have the motivation you need to stop hesitating because you
know, without question, if you keep it up, you’ll never experience
the life you’ve been waiting for all these years.

Without action, talk is only noise. Below is what I do in
particular to get the most out of this five-letter word. It’s
something you can do, anytime and any place, to dismantle
procrastination and ignite your inner drive.

Action Steps – Short & Sweet
Think of something you want. Not a lip-service dream, but something
you truly desire, something either for yourself or for someone else.

Our results have shown that people imagine themselves experiencing
the joys of progress or success when asked to think of a goal.

This time I want you to do the opposite.

I want you to imagine, vividly, that your idea, your chosen dream
or goal, cannot happen. No matter what you do, you’ll never get it.
Never. Never.

If you do it right, you’ll feel anxious, like you have to get up
out of your seat right now and do something before time runs out.
This is the power of ‘never.’

Don’t hide from the truth. Let it smack you in the face and punch
you in the gut. Only then can it snap you out of the routine and
drive you into action. Only then can it change your life.

If you don’t do something now, you may never do it then.

Never hide, never avoid, never run from ‘never.’ Use it as a fire
to place beneath your greatest ideas and accept it as a truth that
can set you free.

Embrace…’never.’

From Motivation123.com   http://motivation123.com