“We heard sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people.” - General George S. Patton
 
What is your leadership style?

“You don’t get to choose how you are going to die or when. You can decide how you are going to live right now.” - Joan Baez
 
How are you choosing to live your life?

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather, a lack of will.” - Vince Lombardi
 
How much motivation is driving you toward your goals?

The Shortness of Life
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it. 

Seneca

“There are two pains in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Take your choice.” - 
Unknown
 
Which pain drives your goals?

​A Father’s Prayer
 
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
 
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
 
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
 
Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”
 
 
Douglas MacArthur 

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” - General Colin Powell
 
Could your optimism be improved?

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” - Lao Tsu
 
Can you let go to become more?
 

   There once lived a king, a very benevolent fellow who was loved by all in his kingdom.
   One day an army came and overran the kingdom's castle, making off with half the treasury. The king decided to tell the people he had to increase taxes to make up for the loss. He called in one of his court wise men.
   "How can I break the news without inciting a revolt?" he asked.
   The wise man pondered and came up with a gentle way of explaining the theft as a tragedy for the entire kingdom, and imploring the people for their support. It went over well.
   Time passed, and once again the neighboring army raided the castle, this time carting away much of the food stored for the winter. Once again, the king called upon his wise man - by this time, he was known as the Director of Wisdom - and laid bare the facts.
   "What can I tell my subjects this time?" the king asked. "They will lose confidence in me if I can't defend the kingdom's food and money."
   Again the wise man pondered. He advised the king to be frank about the loss, but to say only that it had gone to a neighboring kingdom that needed it desperately. The king told the people and asked them to work harder on the next harvest. They did, and all was well.
   By this time the neighboring army was getting good at raids. Once again they struck, hauling away horses, hay, more food stock, and most of the royal jewels. Once again, the king summoned his adviser, the Vice President of Wisdom and Sage Advice. This time the king was despondent.
   "They raid the treasury. They take our food. They steal our livestock!" the king wailed. "And the queen is going to kill me about those jewels. You are my most trusted adviser, What shall I do?"
   The wise man hesitated. "I think," he said, "I think the time has come to put the water back in the moat."
   The moral of this story is simple: solve a fundamental problem, and you won't have as many public relations problems.

From: Harold Burson, Cofounder of Burson-Marsteller Public Relations printed in Leadership...with a human touch, March 14, 1995

“Some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen and other people MAKE it happen.” - Michael Jordan
 
Are you wanting, wishing or making your success happen?

“Wake up every morning with determination, so you can go to bed every evening with satisfaction.” - Alan Stein
 
What are you determined to accomplish today?

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” - Tony Robbins
 
 What questions should you ask but are afraid to do so?

At Least Try
 
 
In June 1985, two British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates made the first-ever climb of the West Face of the 21,000-foot snow-covered Siula Grande mountain in Peru. It was an exceptionally tough assault - but nothing compared to what was to come. Early in the descent, Simpson fell and smashed his right knee. Yates could have abandoned him but managed to find a way of lowering him down the mountain in a series of difficult drops blinded by snow and cold. Then Simpson fell into a crevasse and Yates eventually had no choice but to cut the rope, utterly convinced that his friend was now dead.
In his subsequent book on the climb entitled "Touching the Void", Joe Simpson wrote:
"As I gazed at the distant moraines, I knew that I must at least try. I would probably die out there amid those boulders. The thought didn't alarm me. It seemed reasonable, matter-of-fact. That was how it was. I could aim for something. If I died, well, that wasn't so surprising, but I wouldn't have just waited for it to happen. The horror of dying no longer affected me as it had in the crevasse. I now had the chance to confront it and struggle against it. It wasn't a bleak dark terror any more, just fact, like my broken leg and frostbitten fingers, and I couldn't be afraid of things like that. My leg would hurt when I fell and when I couldn't get up, I would die."
The survival of Yates himself was extraordinary. That Simpson somehow found a way of climbing out of the crevasse after 12 hours and then literally crawled and dragged himself six miles back to camp, going three days and nights without food or drink, and contracting ketoacidosis in the process, would be the stuff of heroic fiction if it was not so true. Indeed, six operations and two years later, he was even back climbing. All because, against all the odds, he tried ...
Source: "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson
 
www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/stories.