Tag Motivation

Take a peek at Each Day a Bonus

Michael 7 Comments

Hello dear bloggers. Today I bring you a peek of yesterday’s Uplift post at ROAMcare.org, Each day a Bonus. We have a choice every day. Do we make it fun or will it be dreadful? Death is tragic often enough. Don’t make life tragic also. Make every day a bonus.

In the last week, several “young” deaths made headlines. Hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew, ages 31 and 29 respectively, lost their lives to a drunk driver. Hiphop artist Fatman Scoop (Isaac Freeman III), 53, died after collapsing on stage. Olympic wrestler Michelle Fazzari died of cancer at 37. We are sure none of them expected their last day would be their last day.

On the other hand, Maria Branyas Morera died on August 20 at the age of 117 years, 6 months, and 24 days, leaving five people older than 115 years of age still alive. It is estimated that there are more than half a million centenians in the world, nearly 90,000 in the United States, and over 300 supercentenians (over 110 years old) worldwide. These are people who appreciate the daily gift of a new day.

What do the tragically dead too soon and the life-fulfilled oldest among us have in common?

Read the full blog post at Each day a Bonus. There’s nothing to buy, no fee to read. Ever. (You do have to register if you want to comment and join the discussion. Again, though, that is absolutely free.)

We don’t decide how long we live. We do decide how we live. Whatever you decide to do today, do it with a smile.

Uplift 2024

 

A Labor of Love

Michael 5 Comments

Hello dear blogging friends. Labor Day USA is less than a handful of days away and we know that, regardless of what the calendar and the weather nerds say, is the real end of summer. We also know that means sales! An American holiday isn’t an American holiday without a sale! I think that was a law passed sometime in 1970-something, just as I was entering my working years and never got to enjoy a holiday because I was, you know, working. After what seemed like centuries but was really only decades (and decades) of work, my friend and I were completely un-excited about one more day of labor. So we decided to labor together, a labor of love, to try to re-energize others who had lost their enthusiasm for just being, and together we founded ROAMcare.

We thought with it being Labor Day, we’d celebrate our labor of love with a Labor Day Sale! Except we don’t have anything to sell, nothing to pay for, no fees of any kind. So, there’s nothing for you to save on. But we can save your finger the extra work of clicking on a link and give you our most recent blog post right here right now!

The ROAMcare mission is to refresh your enthusiasm for life by dealing with challenges, confirming your choices, or just finding that extra motivation you need to push through the day! In our latest blog post we encourage you to Find Your Enthusiasm. Read it and see if you don’t feel like hopping over to ROAMcare.org just as soon as you’re done and join us over there too!

Find your enthusiasm

4 minute read
Posted August 28, 2024.
© Copyright 2024 ROAMcare Organization

We’ve written over two hundred blog posts and many fall to this type: “Be happy with where you are” or “Be happy with your choices,” or “Be good with how it worked out.” And there is a lot of love being talked about. Loving our lives, loving those in our lives, loving ourselves. It is all part of making, finding, or keeping your enthusiasm for life.

Life, unlike our blog posts, happens every day. It comes at us each day, each hour, each minute. There will be times when you aren’t going to be happy where you are, or with one of your choices, or how it worked out. Then what? One of our Moments of Motivation exhorted, “Don’t complain when things go wrong. Live with what you can. Learn from what you can’t. Grow from it all.” That then leads to regaining your positivity.

As we pointed out in One Job, “There is little impetus to improve something – a product, a task, a procedure – if that something is already working as well as it can.” We can add to the list of things seeking improvement to include a life.

What brought on this reminder to accept things that go wrong as opportunities to improve? Because lately things have gone wrong. The specifics and the details are not important. That we’ve found ourselves questioning our own counsel to keep up our enthusiasm for life is the telling point of the tale. After all, we also were the ones who said, “Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Are we going to be relegated to the “Do what I say, not what I do” crowd of orators. Actually, no. The complete quote is, “Know your limits. Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Know your limits. That becomes your starting point to improve, to live with what you can and learn from what you can’t. That is where you learn to extend your limits.

Extending your limits takes not much more than knowing where you are and where you want to be, then harnessing the enthusiasm to get you over the hurdle and encouraging yourself to greatness – or the next step to it. Having a friend who recognizes the hurdles makes the journey to improvement easier, and sometimes even fun.

That reminds us of a favorite story of encouragement that we shared in one of our earliest posts. The tale of Bill and Phil.

Bill and Phil shared a room in a nursing home and so much more. Both, quite infirmed, had no family and no visitors. Their only distractions were themselves. Bill was in the bed nearer the door. Not able to move from a laying position, he had been on his back for as long as anyone remembered. Phil, next to the window, was allowed to sit up in bed for one hour each day.

One afternoon as Phil was raised to his sitting position, his roommate Bill, anxious for a view of anything but the ceiling above, asked him what he saw, and thus began a tradition that was to continue throughout their acquaintance.

For one hour each day, Phil described scenes of the outside world – the blossoms in the spring, the bright colors of summer, the falling leaves in autumn, the crisp snow in winter. He spoke of children playing, animals scurrying, young lovers holding hands, and old friends taking in all around them. Whatever the season, whatever the weather, there was always something special to tell, and it was for those moments that Bill struggled to build his strength working toward the day when he would be strong enough to lift himself and join his friend looking out on the world.

One morning the aide came to wake the gentlemen and discovered Phil had passed away during the night. She expressed her sympathies to Bill on the loss of his friend. After a while Bill asked if he can be moved to be by the window. The nursing staff made the necessary arrangements and moved him. There, still in pain yet as carefully as possible, he struggled to lift himself little by little, until finally he got a glimpse of the scene outside the window. And there he saw the blank, brick wall of the building next door.

Dejected he asked the nurse why his friend had deceived him all these years, telling him of such a beautiful outside when there was nothing but a brick wall.

The nurse, confused about this replied, “He couldn’t have seen anything. You know Phil was blind.”

Then Bill’s eyes were opened! He realized he asked his friend what he saw, not what was outside the window. What Phil saw was the beauty of the world, and each day he described the scene he saw in his mind.

Some days later a new patient was assigned to the room. Bill’s new roommate was placed by the door in the position Bill himself so long had been. His new roommate says, “Hi, I hope you don’t mind a talker for a roommate. I have no family and nobody else is going to visit me. All I can do is lie here and look at the ceiling. Hey, since you are by the window, would you mind telling me what you see?”

“Absolutely!” said Bill. “I’d love to. It’s a really beautiful world.”

We can learn two things from Phil and Bill. Always know that just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And never underestimate the power of encouragement. The blind roommate Phil was able to create a world of beauty knowing somewhere out there was the world he saw, just maybe not the one right in front of him. Bill, his bed bound roommate, found a reason to work to improve himself through Phil’s world of words, and Phil knew his words were the encouragement Bill needed to work hard enough to affect that change.

Life comes at us every day and no, you’re not going to like every minute of it. Enjoy what you do like about it. Learn from what you don’t. Find your enthusiasm. Encourage a friend. Love yourself. Grow from it all.

We hope you enjoyed that and will join our community and enjoy having Uplift and our Monday Moments of Motivation every week. (And we don’t sell or use your email address for anything except for our own subscriptions.)

And Happy Labor Day!

Uplift 2024

Believe in your shelf

Michael 6 Comments

What is the motivated librarian’s morning mantra?

“I believe in my shelf.”

I have to admit that just tickles me! I’m working on adding a new piece to my collection of positive presentations. Clearly that’s the opening line for a self-motivation module. Actually, that’s the only line so far and I fear for its inclusion in the final product because I do like it so. Or should that be I do so like it? I so do like it? Now wait a minute. I don’t fear for its inclusion because I like it. I like it and therefore I fear that it might not be included. Oh, this is all too complicated. Hmm. How about – I hope it’s still around when I’m down to the final draft because I like it. That’s better.  Now if I can come up with another 5,000 words to tack on the back end of it, I might have something.

Words have always fascinated me. So has motivation. Motivating words though…sometimes they can come off either preachy or disingenuous. I like the ones that have a bit of humor about them. Even somewhat punny like believing in your shelf. Find that hook that will make people laugh, smile, or even groan and roll their eyes, and from there you can’t seem to be anything but genuine! I think I’ve found a good balance in finding a way to ease into a motivational speech without it sounding like a motivational speech. At least that’s my goal. Why? This might sound like justifying myself, I think all motivation is self-motivation. I don’t believe I, or anybody else, can motivate anybody else. I can encourage you. I can try to help you create a positive atmosphere. I can show you some positive examples of what I’ve done. From those you will find the reason you want to do or not to do, and you, I believe, are the source of all of your motivation.

In you recall form the post Motivating the Motivators from earlier this year, I wrote, “We’re not psychologists, behaviorists, sociologists or any kind of -ist, just a couple people who’ve been through and seen a lot and want to share our experiences with others,” when I was speaking of how my ROAMcare partner and I go about prepping our Moments of Motivation. I’m still just a person who’s been there and done some of that. And some of that has been to read and listen to some of the seemingly most motivating of motivational speakers (based on reviews and numbers of times they’ve been cited in other’s motivational writings and speeches). And to be honest, I don’t always get it. I don’t even often get it. I know I am not in a position to be critical of that which I hadn’t formally studied but aren’t those (as in we, which includes me) to whom these guys are directing their words?

Personally, I think I’d get a lot more out of a talk on motivating myself if the speaker or author (or, let’s face it, never either, always both), began with a cheesy librarian pun and then spoke across the table to me rather than standing on stage, flailing their arms as they exhort me to remember that it’s never too late to be what I might have become. All due respect to Mr. Eliot, or rather Ms. Evans and those who quote her, often not citing her, yes it can be. And if it isn’t, then pray how or how not?

I on the other hand, might lean toward a different Eliot/Evans quote. “What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” Now that is an idea I can get into, helping others, being there for them, easing burdens. Listening for the opportunities to help others. There is the potential to be a source of comfort, and by extension motivation, for the giver as well as the receiver. As a non-ist, that’s what I want to hear.

And so, I’ve started my file and have happily typed out, “What is the motivated librarian’s morning mantra? ‘I believe in my shelf,’” and just as happily have stared at that screen for a few days waiting for more to fall out of my brain. It will happen. Why? Because I believe in my shelf too!

It is your choice how you act toward others, but it is not how they react to you. Their responses are as much out of your control as the weather. Or are they? Read what we think about that in the latest Uplift!, To everything a season.

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Sugar, slice, and a couple things nice

Michael 13 Comments

It’s that time again. The dustbin of my brain needs emptying. Needs to be emptied? Whichever, it’s time to write out all those random thoughts and make room for new dreck, err, information. This time, though, we have some nice thoughts.

Let’s start with the spicier stuff! Spices.

Last week I made one of my favorite dinners. Oh, let’s be honest with each other. If it has a protein, a vegetable, and a starch, it’s one of my favorite dinners. Let’s call this one instead, one of those dinners I don’t often make and thoroughly enjoy whenever I get around to it, which might be once or twice a year – blackened catfish. When I need a blackening seasoning, I start with a commercial Cajun seasoning and add paprika, black pepper and thyme. As I was mixing my new blend I inadvertently grabbed a jar of “fish crust” instead of thyme. Fish crust is a proprietary blend used and sold by one of the local restaurants. I realized my mistake when greenish granules fell into my mix rather than the expected tannish dried flakes. Uh oh! I looked at what I was holding, glaring at the bottle that so looks like the one holding my dried thyme and asked what it thought it was doing, jumping out of the rack into my hand when I clearly called for thyme. “Dude, chill,” the traitorous container said, or so I imagined, “I got your thyme in me along with some parsley, cilantro, lemon, garlic, and salt. So it might be a little salty when it’s all done with what you’ve already out in there. Add an extra squeeze or two of lemon before you pull the fish out of the pan. Sheesh, do I have to think of everything?” And the bottle was right. It all worked out in the end and was extra yummy good.

Something else happened last week that wasn’t so fishy. Thursday I was working on the ROAMcare Motivation Moments that will hit the Internet over the next couple of months. I was stuck. I had a whole day with nothing to do but write as much as I wanted, and I couldn’t put two words together. I ran out of motivation to continue. You may remember not long ago I wrote here in the RRSB post Motivating the Motivators that I had worried that might happen some day. “There was a time when I thought that eventually we would run out of motivation. ‘Who is going to motivate the motivators?’ I would ask.” But then I confidently followed that up with, “but that thought was fleeting.” Fleeting my eye. Where were all the thoughts now. So I did what I usually do when I need a little extra oomph. I went off to read some old Motivating Moments. Sure enough, I found one to work for me in that moment. Two actually, one right after the other. The first reminded me that, “A good day isn’t just about hitting the high points. It’s about making it through the low ones too!” By gosh by golly, I had done a lot that day. I was just in a low point. I could climb out of it, or just hang around there and do something else until my brain re-opened for business. And if I didn’t, well, I had done a lot of work and there will be motivating moments still for weeks with what I’d already put in the can. And just as I was about to close that window in the computer, another Moment tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Psst, hey buddy. Look at me.” It nearly screamed at me across my screen, “Make the time to remind yourself how good you are.” By golly by gosh, we were right again. A slow point doesn’t make for a failed day. For every day’s disappointing minute, there are 1439 other minutes available to be better. And a few of those minutes, and a bowl of ice cream later, we were back in the writing business.

Shifting gears to something not motivating at all, to one of my favorite gripes – pickup trucks with an extra serving of testosterone. I was in my little roadster stopped at a traffic lights as red as the Miata itself. With all that red, you’d think even a dim witted macho man would know to slow down. A question I ask myself every now and then when I take the little convertible out is should I be wearing a helmet?  The state used to require it of motorcyclists but they ones now who don’t have pretty hard heads anyway. Usually I only get that thought when I’m in a parking lot next to a “look how big my pick(up) is” truck and then it goes away as soon as I encounter intelligent life again. Well at that light, I heard the rumble behind me and saw a monster of a truck coming in down the hill and there I sat, frozen in my seat, looking in the rear view mirror and not seeing the truck’s grill, not seeing its front bumper, but seeing its undercarriage and front end suspension bits! It was lifted so high off the road, it literally could ride right over me!! There was no shoulder to my right and oncoming traffic to my left. And that left me three choices, sit, pray, or get out of the way.  That’s when I shifted gears and red light or not, pulled forward into the intersection, made a quick check to the left, then one to the right, that a glance at the medal clipped to my sun visor that says, “Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel car fly,” apologized to my ever-present but unseen companion, and flew! I was across the intersection and safely on the side of the road when the monster truck hurtled by. I said a quick prayer of thanks and pulled back onto the roadway to continue my leisurely drive. About 2 miles down the road, Mr. Macho was looking down out of the cab of his metal manhood at the top of the nice officer’s head handing over his license, registration, and insurance. Who says prayers are never answered?

Okay, that’s it for this week’s random thoughts. Tune in again next week for another exciting episode of “What will he come up with now?”

Hey, while we speaking of spices, that reminds me about condiments. Did you know people are like condiments? We explain why we think so in the most recent Uplift! It only takes 3 minutes to read. Go ahead, click that link!

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Motivating the motivators

Michael 7 Comments

Readers who read my posts all the way through know at the end of each I have to link to some other blog (Uplift!) at some other place (ROAMcare.org). If you never read all the way through, now you know too.  While this blog is (usually) fun and (almost) always lighthearted (last week’s post notwithstanding), it generally reflects how I’m feeling at the moment. ROAMcare is a different animal. In partnership with my dear friend and once upon a time work colleague Diem, we created a space where you can go to “Refresh your enthusiasm for life by dealing with challenges, confirming your choices, or just finding that extra motivation you need to push through the day!” I know. It says so right on the home page. Something to Uplift! our visitors. We’re not psychologists, behaviorists, sociologists or any kind of -ist, just a couple people who’ve been through and seen a lot and want to share our experiences with others. And in fact, those blogs are born of Diem’s and my experiences, most often only one or the other, although occasionally we might be doing the same or a similar something.

Anyway…now you know there’s another blog out there and it’s always been more of a motivational tool than this one here. Something else we have on that site is what we call our Moments of Motivation (and the real reason for this particular post). These Moments of Motivation are quick, hopefully catchy and easy to remember nuggets of positivity that we post every Monday to all our social media sites and to the website. Over the last couple years we posted 90 of these little guys. Here is last week’s, which is probably the least motivating moment we’ve posted.

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The point to all this is that over the last couple years of doing what we can to motivate others, I found myself being the most motivated I’ve been in years. Many years! There was a time when I thought that eventually we would run out of motivation. “Who is going to motivate the motivators?” I would ask. Even Norman Vincent Peale must have had a couple negative thoughts. Didn’t Steven Covey have any bad habits? Are we sure there wasn’t at least one guy who could tick off Will Rogers? Surely they all had their down times, as these were people with credentials who knew what they were doing. How could we hope to refresh anybody’s enthusiasm or give them that extra motivational push to make it through the day. Ah, but thought was fleeting. So fleeting I barely remember having it, because before you knew it, we were back brainstorming motivational moments.

Our process was simple. Every so often we get on the phone, or online, or or a video call and talk. What lifted our spirits this week? What good things happened and why if we know. What held us back from doing something? Then we distilled those thoughts into 4 or 5 word sayings. We’d work on a plan of how we’d match phrase to picture and create the graphic. Then I’d expand the thought to a 20 to 30 word blurb, add a link and the tags, and post away every Monday morning. (You can find this week’s sometime after 8am Monday at ROAMcare on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, even Twitter, and at www.ROAMcare.org) You’d think turning it into such a production would turn it into work and the words become just words for us. I don’t know how all the -ists manage it, but for me, that’s what made it even more motivating!

Maybe it’s because we spend so much time saying aloud the things we find motivating. Maybe it’s because we take each phrase and rephrase it 3, 4, 5, more than 5 times and hear it over and over. Maybe it’s because we spend so much time with each phrase. Or maybe I’m just easily motivated. But it’s true. I’ve been my most motivated since we started these motivating moments. Do you need some extra motivation. At the risk of putting myself out of business, maybe you just have to tell yourself, “Get motivated and do!” Moments of motivation. Moments that really do add up to a lifetime.

Oh, where were they when I was working for a living?

No job is just one job, but a series of steps to an ultimate goal. Is “You had just one job” a punch line or a new learning opportunity? We give you our take in that in the latest Uplift!

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I Participated

Michael Leave a comment

I was working on a blog post for the foundation when a thought occurred to me. Let me give you some background. That post is about the carrots and the sticks we use on ourselves. It began with a package sent to a friend. When I asked a few days later what she thought of it she said that she hadn’t opening it but was saving it as a reward for herself when she completed a project she was working on. And there that post begins down the trail of why we incentivize our happiness with promises of work completed rather than the other way around. If you want to see how that ends, it will hit the ROAMcare website in a couple weeks. Until then, let me tell you some of the things I thought that I didn’t write.

You see, days went by, a week went by, then a week and some days went by and then project was not much nearer completion than before the first days that had gone by. The project ran into snags. Other work encroached. Another job came up. The package remained unopened.

Perhaps this is something we’ve learned along the way to becoming mature adults. As children we were likely subject to bargains such as “If you get ready for bed I’ll come in and read you a story,” or “You can have dessert when you eat all your vegetables.” As we got older, we may have heard, “You can get a driver’s license when you get better grades,” or “You can go to the dance when you can buy your own dress/suit/dancing shoes.” Even as adults we tell ourselves things like “I’ll take a break when I finish this order.” We’ve grown up with the enticement of a reward for completing a task.

The all wise and famous “They” say a mark of maturity is to be able to defer gratification. Another sign of maturity is unconditional respect for others. “They” don’t say what to do when the objectives conflict. If you decide you that you won’t make your favorite dessert until you complete a project and if the project completion Is delayed, only your joy is interrupted.  When another enters the equation is it fair to defer their gratification also, to take away their joy when they cannot assist on the side of the equation to improve the situation. Or is that when respect trumps deference.

The point of the blog that someday will appear on the ROAMcare site is that decision should never have to be made. We should not go through life bargaining with ourselves to be able to enjoy life.

image0There are still those who feel participation awards for children eliminates their sense of accomplishment when there are no winners or losers. The argument may be valid on a baseball diamond or tennis court, but not in life. In life, living is the reward. There is no part of life that is a reward for doing something. The reward is being able to do something because you have mastered how to enjoy life. When my life is over and I look back at what I have done, I will feel much better being able to say I participated and not worry so much much if I won.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs or check out the Moments of Motivation archives. Everybody is always welcome,

Bee Present

Michael 5 Comments

Do you ever do something and surprise yourself at how profound you are? Me neither, but I did something that really had me thinking for a few days. I kept saying to myself “Yeah, that’s me, damn it. I can do better!”

Many of you know that in an alternate universe I am co-founder of an education foundation, more life and self-preservation than education but you have to slot these things somewhere. One of our routines is a weekly social media fixture, A Moment of Motivation, in our words, “small doses of positivity.” (I came up with that!)

Motivation Posts (50)Let me tell you, it’s hard work to build up to a single motivating moment. In preparation for this morning’s release, I drafted the first iteration of image and theme: Be Kind, Be Present, Be Grateful.

Then started the series of texts back and forth. (You want motivation? You have to be motivated to work together when you’re separated by 2100 miles and three time-zones. But that’s a different story.) After discussion, major changes, minor refinements, lots word-smithing, my partner and I settled on: Don’t Be a Busy Bee – Bee in the Present. Now with an image and theme it was up to me to come up with a motivating message to accompany it. Here is the final form:

Motivation Posts (52)“Life is a busy place. We come here every morning and start the day with a mental list of things to do.
Meetings meals, classes, jobs, tests, housework, work work…stop! 
Stop doing and start being!
Sit, pray, meditate, experience nature, see the people around you. Be part of the world.
Stop making a living. Start making a life.
Be present!”

Now if you ask me, I say that’s excellent advice. Boy I wish I had thought of that forty years ago! Even without “work” I start each day asking myself, “What am I going to do today?” Did I learn anything from my experiences? Maybe from the experience of getting it wrong. How often as a young professional did I tell my young family, “See you later, I have a meeting. No nothing to do with work but the right people will be there and I have to make myself seen.” Or not thinking twice about taking on the extra project at work because it will look good on the resume. “So what if it means staying home and not joining everyone for a week at the shore? When will a chance like this come again?” What seemed like a justification for doing the work are the very same words I wish I had use to talk myself out of that work. Even today I tend to skew everything in terms of “what may be” rather than in the “what am I,” always looking at what could happen if I do or don’t do something, say or don’t say something, go or not go somewhere. Yes, we need to plan, we need to set goals and we need to be certain we do the things that will keep us around for a long time for those who love and need us. But we need to also see that the most important thing is why we are, not the who or what we are.   

We cannot simply concentrate on the task, like the bees setting out to gather nectar. Nor can we sit on the outside waiting for something to happen. We have to immerse ourselves in everything around us. We are part of the beauty of the world, and we are loved for that. Not for the work we accomplish or the words we write. We are loved because we are us. We belong because of who we are. When you wake tomorrow and ask yourself, “What am I going to do today?” make the first item on the to do list, “sit, pray, meditate, and experience,” and then repeat as necessary.

Stop making a living. Start making a life. Don’t be so busy. Be present!

(If you have the urge please follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at @roamcare or visit our website http://www.roamcare.org)