The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

RE-MEMBER

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Happy Memorial Day.

How can you assure it?

One simple word: RE-MEMBERING–literally, by putting together the Pieces of your Life that have meaning and significance to you the Ones who make those Memories worth RE-Membering–Putting back together.

The World will debate and argue, but the greatest forces in and out of this World are our Memories and the Love that makes those memories significant.

It’s easy to JUST Limit these Memories to our Veterans or for those who have recently passed, but any day we truly RE-Member, that we actually put together those snipets of ‘Once-Upon-A-Time,’ and ‘Remember When’s’ that put all those glorious colors to the Tapestry of our Lives, becomes a true Memorial Day.

Like any Holiday, it really is celebrated most, not so much on it’s Noted, Dated Day, but when fully Recognized, Realized, Revitalized again and again and again with, yes, that one single, beautiful thing called Memory.

So, on this Memorial Day, RE-MEMBER: It’s not enough for us to just merely Remember, but for us to just simply Re-Member one thought, one memory past Eternity.

Five Words:

Happy Memorial Day. . .Thank You. . . .

The Calling

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“THEY SAY. . . ,” you will not have just a job or more, just a career, but most likely FIVE of them during your life time.

Gone are the days of working for a corporation/factory/school district/job for forty years to leave with a nice pension, 401K and the proverbial gold engraved Watch.

It’s this time of the year with Graduation Ceremonies abounding that we hear of 70, 80, 91 year old’s actually graduating. Their Retirement, better still, their Calling has changed. It doesn’t matter WHO they were before…it matters WHO THEY ARE NOW!

Us too.

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The Never Failing Experiment

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It is absolutely Flawless.

The Experiment never fails–Ever.

Dare to not only change your life, but your work, your leisure, your lifestyle, your relationships, your all encompassing E V E R Y T H I N G!

But, don’t let me tell you about The Experiment. Let me Show you…better still, YOU TRY IT!

Here’s how it works:

EVERYTHING YOU DO, DO AS AN EXPERIMENT!

Really, IT is THAT simple. There’s no special formula’s; no 1-2-3 steps to take, no special maps to follow, no A-B-C special procedural directions, no embarrassment, no, “I-told-you-so’s,” no hassle and no worry. . .Really!

This will work just as brilliantly at work as it will personally or at home.

Pick a problem to be solved. Go ahead, if you want, do what you use to do. Pro and Con it, list all the reasons For and Against, think In and Out and Around the Box; do what you do to come up with a most likely, probable, consensus decision and then apply it this way: AS AN EXPERIMENT.

By the very nature of any Experiment, it naturally calls for Trial and Error. It Expects to Fail as a means to Succeeding. Ask Mr. Edison how many successful ways he determined NOT to Invent a Light Bulb!

When you Experiment things, there’s no pressure, no winning or losing–just a faster track to Success or WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU OR THE SITUATION!

Under this guise, you can Experiment with an Exercise Program, a new Diet, a Short cut to work or another destination, a way to resolve a conflict at work, in a relationship, or between business partners or neighbors.

It’s NEVER FAILED.

Don’t believe me, though. Try it yourself. Mix a little of THIS will a little of THAT, shake gently and pour a drop at a time or as quickly as you dare in full measure…it won’t matter because IT IS AN EXPERIMENT.

The best part?

If IT doesn’t work, you can triumphantly shout, “N E X T”
and begin yet another Experiment again and again and again. . . .

One of my favorite Experiments is to have an Experiment inside of an Experiment–Try IT–There’s nothing more FREEING and NON-THREATENING and best of all:

E F F E C T I V E.

Sometimes DOWN is Really UP

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Sometimes, down is really up!

Interesting, huh?

Actually, it’s much more than THAT…much, much more than just interesting.

Anyone can play around with words.

Anyone can make words say or work for them in any particular way seen fit.

Anyone can say what they mean but often not mean what they say.

S E M A N T I C S. . . .

Hmmmmmm…THE STUDY OF MEANING IN LANGUAGE. IT CAN BE APPLIED TO ENTIRE TEXTS OR TO SINGLE WORDS….

or just a fancy way to say we can make words say what we want them to whether or not you take them that way or not. . .

or just a fancy way to say, “I DIDN’T MEAN THAT–YOU TOOK IT THE WRONG WAY!”

Sometimes, down is really up.

When you JUST hear with your ears. . .

When you Just hear with your eyes. . .

You just don’t hear everything that’s being said or meant; THAT just doesn’t make for a LOST GENERATION…it just makes for plain out being L O S T.

Psssst: Maybe the new DOWN actually is UP?

Try Listening with your heart!

If you speak from THAT PLACE, Semantics go out the door that is suddenly Hinge-LESS and Meaning is never MIS-understood.

You choose!

Sometimes Down is really UP. . . .

Shhhhhhh….

Huh? What’s that?

L I S T E N

Sand Art and Baseball

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Cancer and kids don’t mix; never should. In fact, cancer and people, no matter how old the KID, never mix.

She just turned nine. She has cancer. I got to meet her and her sister and mother today, the first and most likely for the last time.

It was a Supervisory I made with a colleague, who was superb. We read a story about the different colors we often feel and are. We put different colored sand in bottles, carefully layered. We drew pictures, laughed, talked and laughed some more and then left.

I felt Compassion. It was a light-baby-blue color that lapped over me like warm Caribbean waves.

Cancer and kids don’t mix; never should.

I left there and drove 45 minutes to a nursing home and visited a 79 year old kid. She has cancer, too. She was eating her lunch and watching her TV with the volume almost up to the max. We didn’t read stories, make sand art or draw…but we did laugh. She told me of how some hospice volunteers and staff took her to a Cleveland Indians game and how she didn’t have A hotdog or A beer, but TWO hotdogs and TWO beers. With a huge, mostly toothless smile, she gushed about how a ball boy reached over the railing and gave her a ball–which she had secretively hidden so that it ‘wouldn’t roll away into someone else’s keeping.’

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Saving the Spider, Saving Myself

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He surprised me at 6:30 in the morning, climbing out of the bowl of my bathroom sink.

He was having a hard time trying to escape so I thought I would help. I snapped into my Albert Schweitzer role and attempted to help him out by extending a piece of paper, a hand towel and finally a rolled up newspaper…the latter had him scurrying back down the dark, black drain.

It was obvious…no brushing of the teeth or turning on the water.

I jumped into the shower and scrubbed my teeth, shaved and showered all into one, hoping that the itsy, bitsy spider would climb out of the drain and the sink.

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Toughest Job

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY

Is it the worst job ever?

To be sure, it’s ONE job, few would ever apply, accept, or keep…and yet, there are well over a billion that holds the actual gut-wretching-never-ending position.

And to that there are only Two Words, never said enough days before, Day of, or days after. . .

T H A N K Y O U.

Go hug a mom…and if you can’t. . .

HUG A CHILD OF ONE–hard and just a little longer than usual!

…happy mother’s day–Every Day!

We Are Each of These

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It’s the absolute Truest thing about any One person that any One person doesn’t actually believe.

. . .That we are MORE!

When someone asks us what we do, we usually have A answer for them, and seldom does it include more than just ONE thing.

Oh, we’ll shout it all day long and half of the night, that, “WE ARE THE SUM PARTS OF ALL OUR LIFE EXPERIENCES…”

“Do-Dah, Do-Dah,” right? We’ve sung the song, most of the verses, many times over haven’t we, and yet we still at our very core don’t actually believe that we are P L U R A L and not Singular?

Few of us would argue, debate or disagree with George Washington Carver when he tells us:

“HOW FAR YOU GO DEPENDS OF BEING TENDER TO THE YOUNG
COMPASSIONATE TO THE ELDERLY
SYMPATHETIC TO THE STRIVING
TOLERANT TO THE STRONG AND THE WEAK. . .
BECAUSE ONE DAY. . .ONE DAY. . .YOU WILL HAVE BEEN EACH OF THESE!”

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Falling UP

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Oh yeah, it’s happened several times. At least a dozen times. But not as many times as it has happened WHEN I HAVE NOT BEEN RUNNING!

F A L L I N G

Ouch. We’ve all done it haven’t we.

I usually run/jog early in the morning, mostly even before the sun comes up. IF I fall…no one is usually up to see it.

Whenever I FALL by not keeping a promise, not caring more, being a huge jerk, having a short fuse, being hypocritical, missing a goal–badly, totally living a different scenario than ever dreamed, not just fighting but actually fighting dirty, seeing how I make a difference and absolutely-on-purpose-DON’T, I, I utterly, undeniably, unequivocally, overwhelmingly, uhhh. . .

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The Compassionate Competitor’s Chord

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Well, does it?

Does Competition bring out the best in you?

Does it make your Compassionate Chord ring out its best?

Just how Competitive are you?

I can’t play golf or bowl. It’s not that I don’t know how or that I haven’t, it’s just that I WILL NOT golf or bowl, because it brings out all Beast and nil to nary Beauty.

I mean that in all of its viciousness.

My best time EVER for running a marathon was the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. 1983 on a cool 45 degree rainy day. I ran it in 2:50.26 seconds.

I finished 286 out of 9987 runners that day. I didn’t even get to the starting line because of that vast crowd almost until six minutes AFTER the race began. I should be proud. Honored. Bragging about it….

The qualifying time to go to the Boston Marathon that year was 2 hours and fifty minutes. I missed it by 26 seconds. That averages out to 6 minute 29 second mile for 26.2 miles and I still needed to be a second faster per mile. I MISSED IT!

I swear. I never felt winded that day. My legs never hurt. I never hit The Wall. But I failed.

I NEEDED TO BE JUST ONE SECOND PER MILE FASTER…and I wasn’t.

Yes, I could have contested the race saying I wasn’t able to even reach the start line for 6 minutes…but in my heart, even if granted the allowance, I WOULD KNOW I WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH…and there’s been the dance of competition I’ve haggled with all of my life.

I compete with my self more fiercely than any one else. I don’t need a foe…I AM FOE to myself. I am constantly challenging myself to do more, be better, faster, more efficient, More, MOre, MORe, MORE,
M O R E!

And I never, ever settle. Never give in. Always looking for the next battle, challenge, competition, game.

What competitor’s song bounces within you? Does it’s notes haunt or taunt you? Are your striving to be better…even more than yesterday?

I have found that as destructive and sometimes as devastatingly disappointing this could be, it has taken me to new, higher levels when it comes to my Compassionate Ways.

Can I be more giving? Can I Care more? Can I listen more empathically? Can I be more accepting? Forgiving? Nurturing? Sharing? Loving?

When I compete with myself, DAILY, on these feats of the heart…can others gain, be better? Can I?

It’s then that these vicious musicians, duel madly within me, trying to OUT SOUND and gain Center Stage…but if the notes all work together for the good…this magnificent Symphony beautifully unfolds in a most magnificent way.

…hands get clapped, toes get tapped, faces wear smiles and the Music of the Soul bursts forth and OHHHH, how that pleases the Maestro…but NEVER ENOUGH! There’s more symphonies to be created and perfomred!

And on THAT NOTE…it’s time to begin again.

Buckle up!

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man