I met Alice from Wonderland

“Cheshire Cat,” Alice began, rather carefully.

“Would you tell me, please, which way to go from here?”

“That depends on where you want to go,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.

“Well then it doesn’t really matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.

“…so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat,

“if you only walk long enough.”

~ From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

I have lost track of the number of times I’ve used that passage from Alice in Wonderland to make a point. At times, I wish I could consult with Lewis Carroll himself to find out if there are more hidden nuggets he could reveal. Instead of having a chat with the long departed author though, I once met his main character.

While attending and speaking at a business-building conference, I met dozens of people looking for ways to grow their business. Most of them had a specific idea of what they needed and asked questions directed at finding out. There were a few in a considerably different place. This set was represented by Alice.

During a social break, all of the attendees and speakers were networking in the lobby of the hotel. Alice approached me and said she really enjoyed my presentation. I thanked her and asked if there was anything from it she could apply to her life or business.

“I don’t know,” she said lazily,

“I’m sure there is.”

“What about the other speakers?” I pressed, “Anything from their sessions you’ll be able to take home?”

“Probably,” she continued, “but I just don’t think I’ve gotten what I needed yet.”

Anticipating where this was going, I became the Cheshire Cat. “What is it you need then?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Alice.

“Then how do you know that you haven’t already gotten it?” I smiled softly.

If you don’t know what you want, how do you go about getting it?

If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

Since Alice didn’t know what she wanted, how many presentations would it take for her to find what she was looking for?

Alice’s situation isn’t uncommon but it is unproductive. We’ve all fallen prey to buying book after book, conference after conference, gimmick after gimmick, looking for the missing piece. The trouble isn’t with the book, conference, or gimmick. The trouble is that we haven’t established the need we want the (conference, book, gimmick, etc.) to provide.

When we accumulate information without any clear objective for its use, we call that, Just In Case learning. We aren’t sure what we need and don’t have a clear vision for where we are headed, so we grab everything within reach just in case we need it.

This habit frustrates countless people. It is responsible for huge purchases and subsequent refunds. The buyer blames the program for not delivering, but the simple fact is they didn’t have any idea why they were buying it. How could the program possibly deliver when an expectation isn’t established?

Instead of blindly hoarding information in hopes of something magical, we are better served to apply a philosophy I learned in manufacturing and applied as a 30-something college student. Just In Time learning.

With a Just In Time philosophy, I establish what I need and seek the solution. With a clear objective in mind, I find the expert, information, service, product, conference, or whatever I need to solve my issue. During my bachelors and masters programs, I laid out what I needed to learn from a chapter before ever reading it. I would outline my papers before beginning the research. Every action had a purpose.

How does this help? It’s a matter of having context. If you have a reason for doing something, the actions are more meaningful. If you are doing something without a clear reason, a context, the actions and events won’t stick. The learning is more difficult and the effort is wasted.

I’ve wasted countless hours and dollars doing the same as Alice. My preparation habits have changed and now I optimize my experiences. Now I believe you make your own luck and a lot of it has to do with preparation, focus, and where your heart is.

Don’t send your time and money down the rabbit hole with Alice. Take the time to know what you need and make its attainment your focus. Survey your landscape for the best way to get what you need and when it involves others, make it a point to give first.

You can only take for so long before it catches up with you. When you approach life with a prepared focus and servant’s heart, your needs will rush to you with uncommon speed.

Be your best,

~ PJ McClure

Live Life to the Fullest

Now this is gonna be fun and uplifting…. I loved doing research for this blog.  I got so pumped up, I didn’t wanna finish writing… then I thought about all of you who might get just as pumped up reading it… so here I am.

This topic is near and dear to my heart.  So few people really live life to the fullest.  We get stuck in our ways and routines and just kinda coast through life, then something major happens to you or someone you love, and you start to think, “Is this all there is for me?”  “Is this all I’m capable of?”  Why wait for that moment to wake up? Live your life awake.  Live your life to the fullest.  It’s the only way! Don’t just take my word for it.  Here are some great inspirational quotes about living life to the fullest!  Enjoy and soak them in!!

Top 23 Quotes – Living Your Life to the Fullest:

1. “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

     ~ Robert Breault

2. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

     ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. “Life is a game, play it; Life is a challenge, Meet it; Life is an opportunity, Capture it.”

     ~ Unknown

4. “If you obey all the rules, you’ll miss all the fun.”

     ~ Katharine Hepburn

5. “The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”

     ~ Louis E. Boone

6. “There’ll be two dates on your tombstone and all your friends will read ‘em but all that’s gonna matter is that little dash between ‘em.”

     ~ Kevin Welch

7. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did.”

     ~ Mark Twain

8. “Cherish your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows and live your todays.”

     ~ Anonymous

9. “Quit hanging on to the handrails . . . Let go. Surrender. Go for the ride of your life. Do it every day.”

     ~ Melody Beattie

10. “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. In the past, whenever I had fallen short in almost any undertaking, it was seldom because I had tried and failed. It was because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying at all.”

     ~ Arthur Gordon

11. “One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.” 

     ~ William Feather

12. “Every day, it’s important to ask and answer these questions: “What’s good in my life?” and “What needs to be done?”

     ~ Nathaniel Branden

13. “A life without cause is a life without effect.”

     ~ Barbarella

14. “There is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

     ~ Christopher Morley

15. “Don’t wait. Make memories today. Celebrate your life!”

     ~ Unknown

16. “Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.”

     ~ Les Brown

17. “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.”

     ~ Danny Kaye

18. “Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.”

     ~ Grace Hansen

19. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

     ~ Joe Lewis

20. “Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”

     ~ Pope Paul VI

21. “I don’t wait for the calendar to figure out when I should live life.”

     ~ Gene Simmons

22. “The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

     ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

23. “It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.”

     ~ Adlai Stevenson

Well, there you have it!  Now go take on the world, go skinny dipping, surf, sky dive,  or skip work and play hookie with you kids…. go live life to the fullest!  What are you gonna do?  Leave me a comment below.

~ Matt Morris

For more amazing PEARLS OF WISDOM to help you live life to the fullest CLICK HERE NOW!

The God Memorandum

Feel my hand upon thy head. Attend to my wisdom. Let me share with you, again, the secret you heard at your birth and forgot. You are my Greatest Miracle. You are the greatest miracle in the world. Those were the first words you ever heard. Then you cried. They all cry.

1. Count Your Blessings

I have placed a hundred million receptors in your eyes … twenty four thousand fibres in each ear … I have designed five hundred muscles, two hundred bones and seven miles of nerve fibre all synchronised to do your bidding … I have given you a strong heart – touch your chest and feel its rhythm, pulsating, hour after hour, day and night, thirty-six million beats each year, year after year, pumping your blood through more than sixty thousand miles of veins, arteries and tubing … pumping more than six hundred thousand gallons each year … I’ve given you lungs that labour always to filter life-giving oxygen through six hundred million pockets of folded flesh while they rid your body of gaseous wastes … within your five quarts of blood are twenty-two trillion blood cells and within each cell are millions of molecules and within each molecule is an atom oscillating at more than ten million times each second. Each second, two million of your blood cells die to be replaced by two million more … your brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Within its three pounds are fifteen billion nerve cells, more than three times as many cells as there are people on this earth. I have implanted within your cells, more than one thousand billion, billion protein molecules. And, to assist your brain in control of your body I have dispersed, throughout your form, four million pain-sensitive structures, five hundred thousand touch detectors, and more than two hundred thousand temperature detectors. No nation’s gold is better protected than you … within you is enough atomic energy to destroy any of the world’s great cities … and rebuild it.

2. Proclaim Your Rarity

You had condemned yourself to a potter’s field, and there you lay, unable to forgive your own failure, destroying yourself with self-hate, self-incrimination, and revulsion at your crimes against yourself and others. Are you not perplexed? Do you not wonder why I am able to forgive your failures, your transgressions, and your pitiful demeanour … when you cannot forgive yourself? I address you now, for three reasons. You need me. You are not one of a herd heading for destruction in a grey mass of mediocrity. And … you are a great rarity. Consider a painting by Rembrandt or a bronze by Degas or a play by Shakespeare. They have great value for two reasons: their creators were masters and they are few in number. Yet there is more than one of each of these. On that reasoning you are the most valuable treasure on the face of the earth, for you know who created you and there is only one of you. Never, in all the seventy billion humans who have walked this planet since the beginning of time has there been anyone exactly like you. Never, until the end of time, will there be another such as you. You have shown no knowledge or appreciation for your uniqueness. Yet, you are the rarest thing in the world. From your father, in his moment of supreme love, flowed countless seeds of love, more than four hundred million in number. All of them, as they swam within your mother, gave up the ghost and died. All, except one! You! You alone persevered within the loving warmth of your mother’s body, searching for your other half, a single cell from your mother so small that more than two million would be necessary to fill an acorn shell. Yet, despite impossible odds, in that vast ocean of darkness and disaster, you persevered, found that infinitesimal, joined with it, and began a new life. Your life! You arrived, bringing with you, as does every child, the message that I was not yet discouraged of man. Two cells now united in a miracle. Two cells, each containing twenty-three chromosomes and within each chromosome hundreds of genes, which would govern every characteristic about you, from the colour of your eyes to the charm of your manner to the size of your brain. With all the combinations at my command, beginning with the single sperm from your father’s four hundred million, through the hundreds of genes in each of the chromosomes from your mother and father, I could have created three hundred thousand billion humans, each different from the other. But whom did I bring forth? You! One-of-a-kind! Rarest of the rare! A priceless treasure possessed of qualities in mind and speech and movement and appearance and actions as no other who has ever lived, lives, or shall live. Why have you valued yourself in pennies when you are worth a king’s ransom? Why did you listen to those who demeaned you … and far worse, why did you believe them? Take counsel. No longer hide your rarity in the dark. Bring it forth. Show the world. Strive not to walk as your brother walks, nor talk as your leader talks, nor labour as do the mediocre. Never do as another. Never imitate. For how do you know that you may not imitate evil; and he who imitates evil always goes beyond the example set, while he who imitates what is good always falls short. Imitate no one. Be yourself. Show your rarity to the world and they will shower you with gold.

3. Go Another Mile

Take counsel and it shall come to pass, for now I give you the law of success in every venture. Many centuries ago this law was given to your forefathers from a mountaintop. Some heeded the law and lo, their life was filled with the fruit of happiness, accomplishment, gold, and peace of mind. Most listened not, for they sought magic means, devious routes, or waited for the devil called luck to deliver to them the riches of life. They waited in vain … just as you waited, and then they wept, as you wept, blaming their lack of fortune on my will. The law is simple. Young or old, pauper or king, white or black, male or female … all can use the secret to their advantage; for of all the rules and speeches and scriptures of success and how to attain it, only one method has never failed … whomsoever shall compel ye to go with him one mile … go with him two. This then is the third law … the secret that will produce riches and acclaim beyond your dreams. Go another mile! The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be. This is a habit followed by all successful people since the beginning of time. Therefore, I saith the surest way to doom yourself to mediocrity is to perform only the work for which you are paid. Think not ye are being cheated if you deliver more than the silver you receive. For there is a pendulum to all life and the sweat you deliver, if not rewarded today, will swing back tomorrow, tenfold. The mediocre never goes another mile, for why should he cheat himself, he thinks. But you are not mediocre. To go another mile is a privilege you must appropriate by your own initiative. You cannot, you must not avoid it. Neglect it; do only as little as the others and the responsibility for your failure are yours alone. You can no more render service without receiving just compensation than you can withhold the rendering of it without suffering the loss of reward. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, these cannot be separated. The effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, and the fruit is always in the seed. Go another mile! Concern yourself not, should you serve an ungrateful master. Serve him more. And instead of him, let it be me who am in your debt, for then you will know that every minute, every stroke of extra service will be repaid. And worry not, should your reward not come soon. For the longer the payment is withheld, the better for you … and compound interest on compound interest is the law’s greatest benefit. You cannot command success, you can only deserve it … and now you know the great secret necessary in order to merit its rare reward. Go another mile! Where is this field from whence you cried there was no opportunity? Look! Look around thee. See, where only yesterday you wallowed on the refuse of self-pity … you now walk tall on a carpet of gold. Nothing has changed … except you, but you are everything. You are my greatest miracle. You are the greatest miracle in the world. And now the laws of happiness and success are three. Count your blessings! Proclaim your rarity! Go another mile!

4. Use Wisely Your Power of Choice

Be patient with your progress. To count your blessings with gratitude, to proclaim your rarity with pride, to go an extra mile and then another, these acts are not accomplished in the blinking of an eye. Yet, that which you acquire with most difficulty you retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are more careful of it than those by whom it is inherited. And fear not as you enter your new life. Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks. He who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other. Now you know you are a miracle. And there is no fear in a miracle. Be proud! You are not the momentary whim of a careless creator experimenting in the laboratory of life. You aren’t a slave of forces that you cannot comprehend. You are a free manifestation of no force but mine, of no love but mine. You were made with a purpose. Feel my hand. Hear my words. You need me and I need you. We have a world to rebuild … and if it requireth a miracle what is that to us? We are both miracles and now we have each other. Never have I lost faith in you since that day when I first spun you from a giant wave and tossed you helplessly on the sands. As you measure time that was more than five hundred million years ago. There were many models, many shapes, many sizes, before I reached perfection in you more than thirty thousand years ago. I have made no further effort to improve on you in all these years. For how could one improve on a miracle? You were a marvel to behold and I was pleased. I gave you this world and dominion over it. Then, to enable you to reach your full potential I placed my hand upon you, once more, and endowed you with powers unknown to any other creature in the universe, even unto this day.

I gave you the power to think.

I gave you the power to love.

I gave you the power to will.

I gave you the power to laugh.

I gave you the power to imagine.

I gave you the power to create.

I gave you the power to plan.

I gave you the power to speak.

I gave you the power to pray.

My pride in you knew no bounds. You were my ultimate creation, my greatest miracle. A complete living being! One who can adjust to any climate, any hardship, any challenge. One who can manage his own destiny without interference from me! One who can translate a sensation or perception, not by instinct, but by thought and deliberation into whatever action is best for him and all humanity. Thus we come to the fourth law of success and happiness: For I gave you one more power so great that not even my angels possess it.

I gave you the power to choose.

With this gift I placed you even above my angels … for angels are not free to choose sin. I gave you complete control over your destiny. I told you to determine, for yourself, your own nature in accordance with your own free will. Neither heavenly nor earthly in nature, you were free to fashion yourself in whatever form you preferred. You had the power to choose to degenerate into the lowest forms of life, but you also had the power, out of your soul’s judgement, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.

I have never withdrawn your great power, the power to choose.

What have you done with this tremendous force? Look at yourself. Think of the choices you have made in your life and recall, now, those bitter moments when you would fall to your knees if only you had the opportunity to choose again. What is past is past … and now you know the fourth great law of happiness and success … Use wisely, your power of choice.

Choose to love … rather than hate.

Choose to laugh … rather than cry.

Choose to create … rather than destroy.

Choose to persevere … rather than quit.

Choose to praise … rather than gossip.

Choose to heal … rather than wound.

Choose to give … rather than steal.

Choose to act … rather than procrastinate.

Choose to grow … rather than rot.

Choose to pray … rather than curse.

Choose to live … rather than die.

Now you know that your misfortunes were not my will, for all power was vested in you, and the accumulation of deeds and thoughts, which placed you on the refuse of humanity, were your doing, not mine. My gifts of power were too large for your small nature. Now you have grown tall and wise and the fruits of the land will be yours. You are not a human being. You are a human becoming. You are capable of great wonders. Your potential is unlimited! Who else, among my creatures, has mastered fire? Who else, among my creatures, has conquered gravity, has pierced the heavens, and has conquered disease and pestilence and drought? Never demean yourself again! Never settle for the crumbs of life! Never hide your talents, from this day hence! Remember the child who says, “When I am a big boy.” But what is that? For the big boy says, “When I grow up.” And then grown up, he says, “When I am wed.” But to be wed, what is that, after all? The thought then changes to “When I retire.” And then, retirement comes, and he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind sweeps over it and somehow he has missed it all and it is gone. Enjoy this day, today … and tomorrow, tomorrow. You have performed the greatest miracle in the world. You have returned from a living death. You will feel self-pity no more and each new day will be a challenge and a joy. You have been born again … but just as before, you can choose failure and despair or success and happiness. The choice is yours. The choice is exclusively yours. I can only watch, as before … in pride … or sorrow. Remember, then, the four laws of happiness and success:

Count your blessings.

Proclaim your rarity.

Go another mile.

Use wisely your power of choice.

And one more to fulfil the other four: Do all things with love … love for you, love for all others, and love for me! Wipe away your tears. Reach out, grasp my hand, and stand straight. Let me cut the grave cloths that have bound you. This day you have been notified.

YOU ARE THE GREATEST MIRACLE IN THE WORLD!

 ~ Og Mandino