The Beach

Friends,

I will be taking some time at this beach this weekend, so unfortunately, I will be unable to post on Saturday.

Enjoy your weekend and I'll see you on Sunday.

- N.J.

“Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.”
--Robert Henri

Childhood Dreams

A video excerpt from Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" on the Oprah Winfrey show. Dr. Pausch's words of wisdom can be applicable to all aspects of life. His entire lecture is a little over an hour long, but I highly recommend it.

Daily Thought: The Clock

"You can't turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again."

- Bonnie Prudden, American rock climber


"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."

- Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France (1804-1814)


"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

- Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple


"The time is always right to do what is right."

- Martin Luther King, Jr., American Civil Rights Leader

Procrastinating

Though entertaining, you do not want to be the man staring aimlessly off into the abyss. In case you were wondering when was the appropriate time to start taking positive action in your life...it's right now.

Don't Chicken Out

Harland loved chicken - there was really no other way to put it. The 40-year old service station cook would make his chicken for families, travelers, truckers, and just about whoever else would come by. As years passed, his service station chicken morphed from a tasty treat into local legend. Harland's secret recipe pleased hundreds of passerbys a day.


However, by the time Harland had reached his sixties, the construction of Interstate-75 had significantly reduced the traffic flow of his service station. Frustrated with his diminished cliental, Harland left the service station kitchen and took the road to try and sell his recipe.


Harland spent over one year traveling across the country with his recipe in hand. He pitched his chicken to restaurants during the day and slept in his car at night. It was a tough existance, but Harland knew his recipe was a winner. All he had to do was convince someone else it was as well. He figured it would sell itself.


Simply put, it didn't. By the time Harland returned home from traveling, his reciped had been rejected by over 1,000 restaurants - 1,009 to be exact. Not a single person wanted to adopt Harland's chicken.


But instead of just giving up and chickening out, Harland decided he didn't need any of them. It was going to be their loss. At the age of 65, with the money from his first social security check, Harland opened up his own chicken restaurant.


The rest is history.




Above: A drawing of Harland "Colonal" Sanders

Daily Thought: Being Knocked Down

"Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you. Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals."

- Og Mandino


"If you get knocked down and you stand up, you have already won."

- George Otero


"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up."

- Vince Lombardi

Seizing Your Moment

It was Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull that changed eleven year old Brett Ratner's life. "It blew me away," Ratner, now an accomplished Hollywood director, remembers. "I decided I wanted to be a director like Scorsese. I heard that he went to NYU and decided that was where I was going to film school."

After years of waiting, Brett was given his opportunity. He traveled from Miami Beach up to New York City after his high school graduation for an interview at NYU. Armed with a briefcase full of his films and a projector to show them on, Brett walked into his interview expecting the best.

Unfortunately, it did not go quite as he planned.

"The woman who interviewed me said I needed a 4.0 grade-point average." The interview did not last long. Brett was told that he would not be accepted into NYU's film school. Brett was crushed. "As I was walking out, I thought my life was over." It seemed as if that was where Brett Ratner's dream would end.

But Brett was not going to let it end there. He took his briefcase, and ran over to the office of the dean. "I've got to see the dean," Ratner told the secretary. She told him that without an appointment, it would be three months. "You don't understand," Ratner replied, "this is life or death."


After he persisted for a few more moments, Brett was granted two minutes with the dean. One week later, Brett Ratner had been accepted to NYU's film school.

Brett Ratner's story shows the power of persistance and determination. When given the opportunity, you must seize your moment and attack it for all it is worth. So many people fail because of a roadblock.

Don't let yourself be one of them.




Above: One of Brett Ratner's films

Daily Thought: The First Step

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

- Lao Tzu


"So many fail because they don't get started - they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin."

- W. Clement Stone


"You will never win if you never begin."

- Helen Rowland

Mike

For Mike, a high school kid from Wilmington, North Carolina, sports were everything. His days were filled with afternoons on the baseball diamond and mornings at football practice. He loved sports of all kind. But basketball - that was his passion.

He would play endless games of one-on-one basketball with his brother Larry. Mike wanted to be the best. He dreamed of bright lights, clutch shots, and screaming fans. For Mike, he wasn't just scrimaging his older brother in the driveway, but he was in an arena filled with screaming fans, dribbling past the other team's last guard with three seconds left and the game on the line. Someday, he'd say.

Then, during his sophomore year, things changed for Mike. Instead of becoming that star that he dreamed of, he was cut from the varsity basketball team. Though at first he was overwhelmed by the disappointment, Mike knew that he could not quit here. He was not ready to give up basketball or his dream.

Day after day, Mike practiced. He practice for hours at a time. He took thousands of shots, ran never-ending laps, and performed drills until he collasped. "Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop," he said, "I'd close my eyes and see that list in the lockeroom without my name on it. That usually got me going again."

The next year, Mike not only made the varsity basketball team, but he led the team to a state championship. His determination shows everyone what can be accomplished through persistance, patience, and resolve.

And what did Mike do after that state championship?

Let's just say it wasn't his last.

Who Cares What They Think?

If you have an idea, a story, a manuscript, or a product that you know has value, but someone has told you it doesn't - just keep pushing forward! Chances are, they don't know what they're talking about anyway...

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

- Decca Records, 1962, on why they choose not to sign a new band who called themselves "The Beatles"

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"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"

- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, on why they would not make a "talkie" picture

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"Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility - a development which we should waste little time dreaming about."

- Lee de Forest, inventor of the cathode ray tube

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"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. This device is inherently of no value to us."

-Western Union, 1876

Daily Thought: Just Do It

"We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible."


- Vince Lombardi


"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."

- Leonardo da Vinci



"If you're doing your best, you won't have any time to worry about failure."


- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.




"Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing."

- Denis Waitley







"I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything."


- Jerry Seinfeld



"In spite of your fear, do what you have to do."


- Chin Ning Chu


"Everything happens for a reason. I'm used to it, I prepare for it. Like I say, at the end of the day, those in charge of their own destiny are going to do what's right for them and their family."


- Shaquille O'Neal








"Show me a leader, a visionary, an industrialist, or an icon and I'll show you a person who, when given the opportunity to do nothing, instead chose to do something"


- Anonymous

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost's Masterpiece:

The Road Not Taken TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Black Hat

What do you call a man who failed in the world of business, was defeated when he ran for the state legislature, lost his nomination to Congress, was routed in the Vice Presential race, and trampled in his pursuit for a seat in the senate - twice?

Well, most people called him "President".

Abraham Lincoln, arguably the greatest leader in the history of the United States, faced far more than his fair share of failure throughout his life. But what separated him from the average person was his refusal to allow that failure to bring him down. Instead of throwing in the towel and moving onto some other pursuit in life, he pushed forward - determined to achieve that which he desired. Not one of his prior failures was going to bring Mr. Lincoln down.

Today, history has forgotten the failed runs for office and the misfortunes in business - instead choosing to remember that which he was able to achieve.

Can you imagine what this country would be like today if Abraham had just given up?






"The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats."

- President Abraham Lincoln

Daily Thought: The Diving Board

"It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do'"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson




"Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear."

- Dale Carnegie


"Try and fail, but don't fail to try"

- Stephen Kaggwa