The Best in You

My unofficial mentor is Jim Rohn.  He's 'unofficial' because he passed away last year, and we never met while he was alive.  I call him Mentor because of the wealth of wisdom and valuable advice he amassed, and passed along, during his professional career.  Wisdom and advice I have leaned upon as I construct a new life in pursuit of my passion for communicating.

Steven R. Covey, famed author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and numerous other works of practical wisdom and insight, has likewise affected how I view the world and my place in it.  When I finally committed to read 'Seven Habits' I found I couldn't put it down.  Timing is everything, so they say, and my time for his landmark work had come.  It became foundational.

What do Alice Walker and James Fenimore Cooper have in common?  Me!  I count, The Color Purple and Last of the Mohicans among my all-time favorite reads.  The Color Purple may be the magnum opus of Ms. Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning career.  Told through the eyes and voice of Celie, The Color Purple is a wonderful read.

I love the breadth, the scope, and the cinematography of Michael Mann's screen adaptation of Last of the Mohicans.  In major ways it is completely unlike the book, but if you agree with me about the movie, you must read the book.  Immerse yourself in the grand scope of one of the all-time classics, Last of the Mohicans.

I am sure you agree that life comes at us from all angles with challenges, obstacles, and opportunities.  From these we craft victories, suffer defeats, endure, shut down, cry, shout, laugh, mourn, or just sit in wonderment that we are still alive.  I have chosen to be victorious though I have suffered defeats (bankruptcy and foreclosure to name two); to shout frustrations as well as great praises to God, to laugh often, and to mourn those who have passed into God's presence before me.

I still sit in wonderment that I am alive some days, and I thank God for His mercy and faithfulness to have preserved me thus far for the work yet to be done.  Today that work consists of encouraging you, the readers of this blog, to find a mentor you can trust to challenge you to raise your game to the stars.  Find a book that will reorganize your thinking in such a way as to re-shape how you do business (and how you do 'personal').  Finally, make the time to lose yourself in a really good novel at least once a month.

Seek the best around you and within you, not the average.  Then ask yourself the questions that Jim Rohn asked, "Why wouldn't you push to the best you can be?  To make all the money you can?  To read all the great books you can?  To learn all you can?  To be the best spouse, father, mother, son, daughter, or friend you can? Why wouldn't you?

Andrew Carnegie said, "The man unable to motivate himself will never rise above mediocrity no matter his talent or his giftings."  Make the best in you, the daily you.

Fearlessly,
JD