Quote’s and Stories I find inspirational:

“The future depends on what you do in the present.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

“Life is 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we react to it.” (Charles Swindoll)

“Success comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values and how they best perform.” (Peter F Drucker)

“A person’s worth in this world is estimated according to the value they put on themselves.” (Jean De La Bruyer)

“How are you going to be different by the end of the year?” (Anonymous)

“There are three types of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.” (Anonymous)

“Success on the outside begins on the inside.” (Anonymous)

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.” (Michelangelo)

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” (Paulo Coelho)

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” (Lao-Tzu)

“If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got” (Anthony Robbins)

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined” (Thoreau)

“If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.” (Seneca)

“Every man has only enough strength to complete those assignments that he is fully convinced are important.”(Goethe)

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” (John Ruskin)

The Power of Positive Thinking

Keep your thoughts positive
Because your thoughts become your words
Keep your words positive
Because your words become your actions
Keep your actions positive
Because your actions become your habits
Keep your habits positive
Because your habits become your values
Keep your values positive
Because your values become your destiny
(Mahatma Gandhi)

The Professor and the Jar (Author Unknown)

A Professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The Professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the grains of sand.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else -the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. “Take care of the rock first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The Professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

The Starfish (Original Story by: Loren Eisley)

While walking along a beach, an elderly man saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water.
He came closer still and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”
The old man smiled, and said, “I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”
Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, “But, young man, do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”
The young man listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

Proverbial Story of Two Shoe Salesmen (Author Unknown)

Two shoe salesmen were sent to Africa over 50 years ago to explore the markets. The first shoe salesman boarded the plane and headed into his new territory unsure what to expect, but hopeful that this venture would be a success. His plane safely arrived in Africa and the shoe salesman immediately began his assessment of his new wide open market. It was less then an hour of the shoe salesman’s arrival to Africa when he quickly phoned back to his headquarters and requested the first flight out and back to the states, explaining to his boss “I can’t sell shoes here! Nobody wears them, everyone is barefoot!”

The second shoe salesman hopped on the plane anxious to see what awaited him in Africa. He expected a challenge but was optimistic about this new opportunity. After a safe landing the shoe salesman grabbed his bags and quickly became thrilled at what he observed. The shoe salesman quickly called his headquarters and demanded to speak to his boss, he said “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, send me an assortment of ten thousand pairs of shoes immediately! Everyone is barefoot over here!”

Winston Churchill said “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

3900 Saturdays (Author unknown)

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings.  Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work.  Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other.  What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it. I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net.  Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business.  He was telling whomever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles.”  I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job.  I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much.  Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet.  It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital” he continued.  “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.”  And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.” “You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.  The average person lives about seventy-five years.  I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.” “Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.  It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays.  I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.  So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had.  I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles.  I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.” “Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.” “There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.” “Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast.  This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container.  I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time.  And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.” “It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.  This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!” You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off.  I guess he gave us all a lot to think about.  I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss.  “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.”  “What brought this on” she asked with a smile.”  “Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids.  And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out?  I need to buy some marbles.”

YOUTH by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

TIME (Author unknown)

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!!!
Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.
Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.
Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you.
Each night it burns the remains of the day.
If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.
There is no going back.
There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”.
You must live in the present on today’s deposits.
Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today.

To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask the student who failed a grade.
To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a pre-mature baby.
To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure each moment that you have – time waits for no one!