People are like sticks of dynamite; the power's on the inside, but nothing happens until the fuse gets lit. To do the best job that you can do, you might occasionally need a little fire to get you started. We call that fire motivation.


An Excerpt from
Charging the Human Battery
by Mac Anderson

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
-Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch was 47 years old when he died from pancreatic cancer. He was, as the Independent of London put it, "the dying man who taught America how to live." His book, The Last Lecture, is an international best-seller and it offers many wonderful lessons about life.

Randy Pausch's "last lecture" was delivered in September 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught computer science. The lecture began with him standing before a screen beaming down chilling CT images of tumors in his liver, under the title...The Elephant in the Room. He then said to a stunned audience, "I have about 6 months to live." He said, "I'm really in good shape, probably better shape than most of you," ... dropping to the floor to do push-ups.

He went on to say, "I'm dying and I'm having fun, and I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left." He talked about his childhood dreams and what they had taught him about life. He said, "If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself...your dreams will come to you."

Randy Pausch really was a dying man who has taught America how to live.

He died on July 25, 2008, but his wisdom, his passion, and his attitude are lasting sources of inspiration for all of us.

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Brian Tracy is one of America's leading authors on the development of human potential. He said this,

"If I had to pick the #1 key to success, it would be ...self-discipline. It is the difference between winning or losing; between greatness and mediocrity."

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An excerpt from
The Power of Discipline
by Brian Tracy

Your ability and willingness to discipline yourself to accept personal responsibility for your life is essential to happiness, health, success, achievement and personal leadership. Accepting responsibility is one of the hardest of all disciplines, but without it, success is impossible.

The failure to accept responsibility and the attempt to foist responsibility onto others has dire consequences. It completely distorts cause and effect, undermines our character, weakens our resolve, and diminishes our humanity.

When I was twenty-one, I was living in a tiny apartment and working as a construction laborer. I had to get up at 5 a.m. so I could take three buses to work to be there on time. I didn't get home until 7 p.m., usually exhausted. I was making just enough money to get by, with no car, almost no savings, and just enough clothing for my needs. I had no radio or television. In the evenings, if I had enough energy, I would sit in my small apartment at my little table in my kitchen nook and read.

It was the middle of a cold winter, with the temperature at 35 degrees below Fahrenheit.

One evening, sitting there by myself at the table, it suddenly dawned on me that, "This is my life."

It was like a flashbulb going off in front of my face. I looked at myself and my small apartment, and considered the fact that I had not graduated from high school. The only work I was qualified to do was menial jobs. I earned enough money to pay my basic expenses, but little more. I had very little left over at the end of the month.

It suddenly dawned on me that unless I changed, nothing else was going to change. No one else was going to do it for me. In reality, no one cared.

I realized at that moment I was completely responsible for my life, and for everything that happened to me, from that day forward. I was responsible.

I could no longer blame my situation on my difficult childhood, or mistakes that I had made in the past. I was in charge. I was in the driver's seat. This was my life, and if I didn't do something to change it, it would go on like this indefinitely, by the simple process of inertia.

This revelation changed my life. I was never the same again. From that moment forward, I accepted more and more responsibility for everything...

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"Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning."

~William Arthur Ward

"A curious person who asks questions may be a fool for five minutes; he who never asks questions remains a fool forever."

~Vern McLellan

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Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.

-- Albert Einstein




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