Seeds of greatness lie within each individual. For many, those seeds will remain just that, seeds of unrealized potential and possibility. From others greatness will emerge. Lives will be changed and the world impacted as their choices ripple outward.

What makes the difference between those that become and those that don’t? Read the rest of this entry »

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So you purposed in your heart it is time to change.

It is time to do something. And you are going to do whatever it takes, or so you thought! Now you are wondering…do I really want this that bad? Is it really worth it?

All my friends know about this caterpillar thing. How I killed the prospective butterflies and kept the weeds…so much for transparency. Then, having learned my lesson, I publicly proclaimed that I would no longer care more about the appearance of my front flower bed and would allow the caterpillars to eat to their hearts content knowing all along that the leaves on my bushes would grow back…they did last time…and that I would be the butterfly benefactor.

However, because I killed those nasty pests last time…I did not fully appreciate how bad the front garden would look. They have been eating my bushes for about 6 weeks and they’re huge! Last week I was having a party…a friend suggested I put a sign up front, “Feeding in Progress.” It has been a tremendous joke.

So I am struggling. I mean when are they going to do this cocoon thing anyway? Do I really want to go the distance? Herein lies the power of Weight Watchers, AA and all groups that provide true accountability…it doesn’t matter whether I feel like it or not today…I will persevere. I have shared this story with all sorts of audiences…hundreds of people. It doesn’t matter how messy and unattractive this growth process is…the caterpillars stay…at least until they become butterflies.

<— Weeds #1: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
<— Weeds #2: The Bugs are Back!

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Time is the one thing that when it is gone, it is gone. No amount of wishing or praying will bring back yesterday. Each moment that goes by, is gone….into history. We each have a history, a series of moments that have passed, and we each have a future of moments to come…how many moments none of us know. We each exist in a time called the present; this is the NOW between what has gone by and what is to come.

I can’t live in the past or change one moment of it, and neither can I live in the future. Although intellectually that all makes sense, what I know in my brain may not be truth for my heart. Sometimes I am so busy scurrying towards the future I miss NOW. I miss the beauty of the Florida sun shining on Tampa Bay. So I am working and I don’t have the day off to go play in it, that doesn’t mean I cease to recognize its existence.

Or maybe the pain in my past has been so great that each day I wake with it right in front of me. The wounds still so fresh, that each person I talk to reminds me of my pain. Although time presents me with a tomorrow, I cannot see mine for the yesterday in which I live.

Great achievements come from men and women who understand living in Now. There may be pain in my past, but that is my history not my future. My future may be bright, but it is not NOW. My TIME is MY LIFE. This is it. I do not get a do over for this time around. This is not dress rehearsal. The curtain is up and the show continues whether I choose to run off the stage or not. So I will look at my history, my experience of yesterday to help me plan for tomorrow. But I will choose to be present…I will choose to live in today.

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