“Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.” ~Albert Einstein

The true test of our life is whether we go to bed at the close of each day and know that we have done as much good as possible and that we have followed our instincts towards our sense of self respect instead of self interest. This seems like it should be a clearly demarcated path, but these instincts...

“A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.” -Chinese Proverb

How we come to interpret the events in life is everything. This is most especially true at the most unstable moments in life. Whether in the passionate beginnings or abrupt endings of relationships, how we come to think about the transitions and change we experience is the most dramatic influence on the outcome of most...

“The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

After reading the New York times style section cover storyabout the urgency shared by millions to get onto the Oprah show and the industry building around it, I thought to myself, “As much as I would love to chat with Oprah, I don’t want to be on that waiting list.” I also thought about the...

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.” -Mahatma Gandhi

I am working to change my belief system. Instead of believing that I must create all the situations and events that will make my new book project successful, I want to believe that I my real work is about being available to the opportunities as they find me. In truth it...

“If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right” -Bob Basso

This is one of the most challenging parts of positivity for me to keep my eye on, the fun quotient. I forget often about having fun and, worse still, fall out of touch with just the fact that the whole point of life should be fun. I don’t know why being so serious seems so much more adult to me or if it just a bad habit, but between the...

“Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.” -Publilius Syrus  (Roman author, 1st century B.C.)

Here’s the thing about getting what you want… then you have to do it. I have been envisioning myself as a public inspirational speaker for years. Anyone who knows me would agree I have a lot to say, but still, giving a speech is different than talking. A speech, especially a short one,...

“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” -Anne Sullivan

One of the most difficult passages in life is moving through the times when we try with all our might and fail anyway. It can turn your heart into a rock and make you not...

“Lovely female shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life, especially for their owners.”  ~George du Maurier

I was caught by a news headline that showed, in a recent Nutrisystem poll of one thousand people, approximately 50% of female participants say they would rather go without sex for the summer than gain 10 pounds. One quarter of the male respondents...

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” -Walt Whitman

I have been reflecting on half a year of positivity questing this week. Trying to organize what I have learned in this time and trying to marshal it to step up when, even now I can forget how to be positive. Happily because I talk about it so much, when I can’t quite get there, I have many reliable reflectors in my family to remind me...

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” –Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In my twenties I bought a poster of some guy hanging off the side of a cliff with Jayne Howard’s quote, “If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much room.” I always liked to think of myself as someone who pushes...

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” -Unknown

Today I received a card that said “It’s not you, it’s me.” This is the perfect break-up line, assuring that even if you are walking away from something that is worth fighting for and about, you can go guilt free. After all you took responsibility and legitimately tried to make the...

“We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

This wisdom has been spoken since the beginnings of recorded human history. The lesson that has been known and passed down by every great leader in history is that it is through the disciplined devotion, work and practice of mastering oneself that we meet our greatest achievements. It is an evolutionary...