Henry David Thoreau is the author of Walden, a timeless book which was written during a 2 year retreat in the woods. Of this experience he said:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

From that deliberate living we gleaned one of the most oft-quoted inspirational thoughts of all time: Advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and you will meet with a success unexpected.

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Chapter 18)

In what way will you advance confidently toward your dreams today?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson – A Return To Love

Reasons or Excuses?

In order to create success, we need to have a goal.  We need to have a clear picture of where we want to go.  If you’re reading this, I assume that you have one of those.

Once we have that clear picture of where we want to go, we have an important choice to make: Are you going to have a reason, or an excuse?

Finding excuses is easy… and the deceptive thing about excuses is that we usually label them as reasons we can’t.  But let’s be honest… anything that holds you back from making progress is an excuse.  By definition, and excuse is something that allows you to not move forward.  There are no reasons NOT to reach your dreams.  Only excuses.

If the dream you have is strong enough, it doesn’t matter how many excuses there are… you will only need ONE reason to make it happen.  Focus on the reason and nothing will hold you back.

What will you do today to overcome your excuses??

Intrigued by the overwhelming chain of positive events in my life recently, a friend asked me the question: “are you a lucky person?” I answered by saying that I have a personal mantra that ‘only good things happen to me’ – which is an incredibly accurate definition of my life -but still, it got me thinking… Am I lucky?

See, I don’t believe in luck, at least not the way that most people perceive it. I don’t look at luck as just some positive coincidence that blesses our life by accident. At least not for me. In fact, it’s impossible… in Vegas, you can only hit the jackpot a certain number of times before casino security comes tapping your shoulder for cheating. Similarly, I have hit far too many jackpots in life to explain it by being ‘lucky’.

What Luck Really Is

I’ve heard some good definitions of luck that give a better insight to what luck really is:

• Laboring Under Correct Knowledge
• “When Preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca
• “Luck is believing you’re lucky.” – Tennessee Williams

These all give us good insight into why certain people will have good things happen in their lives more often than the average person.

It’s NOT Luck, Though, There’s More…

But those definitions don’t explain why ‘only good things happen to me’. Statistically, luck just doesn’t make the cut. Maybe Serendipity-On-Steroids would be a more appropriate definition than luck, but that still misses a critical element of the equation… me.

A Positive Attitude Only Goes So Far

The first response that I usually get from people when I explain that ‘only good things happen to me’ is that I am just a positive guy. This is true… I definitely fall into the category that most people would refer to as ‘the glass is half full’. Having this type of attitude allows me to see good where most people might overlook it, and thus be more ‘lucky’ by virtue of perception alone.

This is also the element of the equation that is in our control. You’ve heard it said that you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it. This idea teaches the power of a positive attitude, and of taking responsibility in each situation, but I don’t buy it. Not at all. I don’t believe that “you can’t control what happens to you.”

It doesn’t explain the miracles….

You’ve probably heard the phrase that ‘faith precedes the miracle’. To most people, having a positive attitude is essentially the same as having faith that things will work out okay. But then why are there some many people with ‘faith’ that never experience the miracles… (please, spare me the cop out that it isn’t in God’s will, or it just isn’t in the cards… you were MEANT to live a powerful, miraculous life!)

The reason that people don’t see the miracles intended for them, is that faith is far more than a positive attitude. It’s far more than just believing in things that you can’t see. Faith, in its deepest understanding, is a principle of power. It’s a force that drives us to action…with a complete confidence (not merely a hope) in the outcome. Faith isn’t a mental assertion of a certain belief or particular perspective. It’s something spiritual…

That’s Where The Magic Comes In

Magic is really the product of faith… it’s what happens when we ACT by faith. Magic & Miracle are words we generally use to explain the unexplainable… but to those who take the action steps, the results are not only easily explained, they are often predictable, even calculated. Jesus wasn’t surprised when he walked on water, the Wright Brothers weren’t surprised when they made flight a reality and Edison wasn’t startled when he brought us the light bulb. As excited as each may have been when their respective miracle happened, they knew what the outcome was before they got there.

The missing piece, then, to enable you to live a magical life is action… think big thoughts, get clear pictures of the outcome, and then when the subtle feeling comes to your heard, TAKE ACTION! You don’t need to know how, and you don’t need to know all the steps… just listen to that faint voice that tells you there is a miracle waiting to happen and you’ll see magic every step along the way!

What will you do today to bring a miracle into your life?

Sometimes, a hug is all that we need. Free Hugs is the real life controversial story of Juan Mann, a man whose sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger put a smile on their face.

This video is an inspiring look at how receptive people are when we show love.  We can have a tremendous impact if we choose…

With what later become the Youtube Video Of The Year, Juan Mann changed the world with a posterboard, a marker and some genuine love.

What can you do today to have an impact?